Kerry Darbishire lives in Cumbria, a landscape that inspires her poetry. She has three collections, two pamphlets and a ‘watery’ third which co-won the Hedgehog Press pamphlet prize and will be published in 2024. Her poems appear widely in magazines and anthologies and recently she was poet in residence this August at Rydal Mount, the final home of Wordsworth.
Lisa Kelly’s second collection, The House of the Interpreter (Carcanet), is a Poetry Book Society Summer Recommendation. Her first collection, A Map Towards Fluency (Carcanet), was shortlisted for the Michael Murphy Memorial Poetry Prize 2021.
Simon Maddrell is a queer Manx writer, editor and performer living in Brighton & Hove. Throatbone (UnCollected Press) and Queerfella (The Rialto) were published in 2020. Their 2023 pamphlets are: Isle of Sin, Polari Press in March and The Whole Island, Valley Press in July. He is one of three poets in the Nine Pens Press anthologies, All About Our Mothers, 2022 and All About Our Fathers, 2023.
Stewart Carswell is from the Forest of Dean and currently lives in Cambridgeshire, where he organises Fen Speak. His poems have recently been published in Under the Radar, Finished Creatures, and The Storms Journal. His debut collection is “Earthworks” (Indigo Dreams, 2021).
Sue Burge is based in North Norfolk. Her poems appear in a wide range of journals and themed anthologies. Her four poetry collections are: In the Kingdom of Shadows and Confetti Dancers (Live Canon), Lumière and The Saltwater Diaries (Hedgehog Poetry Press).
Marcello Giovanelli is a poet from Leicestershire, UK. Recent poems have been published in Allegro Poetry Magazine, Dear Reader, Ink, Sweat and Tears, Full House Lit, Erato Magazine, Green Ink Poetry, The Poetry Village and Poetry Plus. @mmgiovanelli.
Patrick Wright has a poetry collection, Full Sight of Her (Black Spring), which was nominated for the John Pollard Prize. His poems have appeared in Poetry Ireland Review, The North, Southword, Poetry Salzburg, Agenda, Wasafiri, and London Magazine.
Our featured publication for January and February 2024 is Collecting the Data by Mat Riches, published by Red Squirrel Press.
Mat Riches offers a rare treat in this debut collection. In a voice that’s variously wry, thoughtful, witty and emotive, he explores a variety of relationships. Prepare to meet his family, but also his tomato plants, a weather balloon, a troublesome supertanker, a fisherman’s pond and the Arecibo Telescope. At one point, he finds himself with his head ‘wedged in the freezer’. This is—yes—funny, but this poet is not just out for laughs. He writes from an unusual angle and it’s deliberate. He uses words to write about silence. Expect the unexpected.
‘Mat Riches is a specialist in the humorous use of the serious and the serious use of the humorous, channelled through a playful but yoked relish for language.‘ Matthew Stewart
‘These poems show us love, with all its limits, hopes and regrets, its crucial specificities of Sunblest, the Wim Hof Method and buttered dogs. They’re heartfelt but not saccharine, often funny but never cynical. Most importantly, they ring true, like the birdsong from the poem ‘A Foley Artist Works from Home’: “only ever birds / being themselves”.‘ Ramona Herdman
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Previously published in The High Window
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Previously published in Algebra of Owls
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Previously published in The Honest Ulsterman
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Previously published in Ink Sweat and Tears
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Mat Riches is from Norfolk, but lives in Beckenham. He has previously worked in a plastics factory, a variety of pubs, and a book wholesaler, but currently works in market research and as ITV’s (unofficial) poet-in-residence. He’s also a trainee Bongosero. When he’s not doing those things, he’s either being a parent, a husband or running. Sometimes all of them at once. He co-runs Rogue Strands poetry evenings, and blogs at Wear The Fox Hat. One of these facts is not true.
Copies of Collecting the Data can be purchased from the Red Squirrel Press website, here.
Thea Smiley’s poems have been shortlisted in the Live Canon Collection competition, longlisted in the Rialto Nature and Place competition, commended in Poets and Players and Ware Poets competitions, and published in The Alchemy Spoon, Finished Creatures, and Butcher’s Dog.
Julie is author of children’s book Mission Dyslexia (JKPBooks), poetry pamphlet Ragged Rainbows (HybridDreich) and slim volume Something Small (Drunk Muse Press). She is the Poet-in Residence for St Mirren FC Charitable Trust and Makar of The Hampden Collection.