Matt Howard Readings & Workshops
‘Matt Howard knows his subjects intimately, and has a gift for illuminating the most fragile and precarious among them, such as the fen raft spider and the ‘niche and otherness’ of its mating rituals. All human life is part of the same fabric, and these poems shine with insight into our loves and griefs, our capacity for cruelty and joy. In spite of everything, that sense of true belonging in the world is felt “in every part of me, singing”.’ – Jean Sprackland
Matt Howard’s second collection Broadlands was published by Bloodaxe Books in June 2024. It was launched online with Bloodaxe on 26 June - scroll down to view the video.
The poems in Broadlands are grounded in the reedbeds, meadows and marshes of the Norfolk Broads. They are closely and thrillingly observed from real encounters, inviting us closer to the more-than-human world, its violence, fragility and wonder. Yet the human is always and all the more present; here too are poems of intimacy, love and grief.
Broadlands follows Matt Howard's debut Gall (2018) from The Rialto, which won the inaugural Laurel Prize for Best First Collection and the 2018 East Anglian Book Award for Poetry and was also shortlisted for the 2019 Seamus Heaney Centre First Collection Prize.
Matt Howard was born in Norfolk in 1978. He is a poet and environmentalist who worked in various roles for the RSPB for more than a decade. He has been poet in residence for the Cambridge Conservation Initiative and also the Wordsworth Trust. Since 2018 he has been a trustee of The Rialto, and was Douglas Caster Cultural Fellow in Poetry at the University of Leeds 2021-2023. He is manager of the University of Leeds Poetry Centre. In October 2024 he was named poet in residence at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park as the recipient of the 2024/2025 YSP/Laureate Fund Residency supported by the T.S. Eliot Foundation, made possible by YSP Trustee and Poet Laureate Simon Armitage.
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The poem 'Marbled Orb Weaver' from Broadlands was discussed by Carol Rumens in her online Poem of the Week column on The Guardian website on 1 July 2024.
'... an exceptional contribution to the ecopoetry genre, and to poetry itself.' – Carol Rumens, Poem of the Week, The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/books/article/2024/jul/01/poem-of-the-week-marbled-orb-weaver-by-matt-howard
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A brilliant in-depth review of Matt Howard’s second collection Broadlands went online in the digital regional newspaper the Yorkshire Times on 17 July.
‘A collection that is so comprehensively buried in the soil of its preoccupation, so uncannily attentive to the silent vicissitudes of change and recovery, could never fully be rewarded by a newspaper review […] Even as early as July, Broadlands must be a candidate for best collection of 2024.’ – Steve Whitaker, Yorkshire Times
https://www.yorkshiretimes.co.uk/article/This-Floating-Ground-Broadlands-By-Matt-Howard
FORTHCOMING EVENTS
Saturday 9 November, 12pm
Poetry in Aldeburgh: Eco-Poetry event
Poets Khairani Barokka, Emily Hasler and Matt Howard are passionately engaged with the natural world, and in their work they explore lost and threatened habitats. They will be reading from their new books - Amuk, Local Interest and Broadlands - which consider new responses to climate change and environmental hazard.
This event is now SOLD OUT - festival details are here.
PAST EVENTS
ONLINE LAUNCH EVENT, 26 JUNE 2024
Online launch with Matt Howard & Katrina Porteous
Matt Howard launched his second collection Broadlands at Bloodaxe's online launch on 26 June. He was reading alongside Northunberland poet Katrina Porteous, whose fourth poetry collection Rhizodont was also published by Bloodaxe in June 2024. They discussed their books with each other and with host, Bloodaxe editor Neil Astley.
The event is now available to watch via YouTube. Matt read second in each set. The readings were followed by a wonderful discussion about poetry and the natural world.
[07 May 2024]
