Matt Howard Poem of the Week feature in The Guardian
'... an exceptional contribution to the ecopoetry genre, and to poetry itself.' – Carol Rumens, Poem of the Week, The Guardian
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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ONLINE REVIEW COVERAGE
Yorkshire Times, online 17 July 2024
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.
‘There is a benediction hidden amongst the East Anglian reeds in Matt Howard’s beautifully constructed new collection of themed poems for Bloodaxe […] Matt Howard’s major concern is to measure a changing landscape by the standard of his Broads own, using close observation, startlingly persuasive metaphors and images that disinter ancient land-uses at every turn […] 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
In his Yorkshire Times review, Steve Whitaker highlighted the poem 'Marbled Orb Weaver’, the subject of Carol Rumens' Guardian Poem of the Week feature (see below):
'As bound by instinct, almost, as the ‘Marbled Orb Weaver’, Howard is forensically adept at detachment, at encapsulating the fixed, high-tensile focus of a spider, whose sole purpose dictates its resistless tenacity. The narrator’s description of a stolidity of evolutionary determinism is yielded as though under the gaze of a microscope' – Steve Whitaker, Yorkshire Times
POEM OF THE WEEK FEATURE IN THE GUARDIAN
The Guardian, Poem of the Week, online 1 July 2024
Carol Rumens discussed ‘Marbled Orb Weaver’ from Matt Howard’s second collection Broadlands in her online Poem of the Week feature in The Guardian of 1 July.
‘The connection made here between data formally expressed and shared with the research community, and the language and imagery of the poem is what makes Howard’s work on the page 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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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.
[01 July 2024]
