Wednesday, March 18, 2015

25 Edge Hill Poets: Matt Fallaize


Partially recovered

Too slow morning starts
inaccurate my
state is shifting a
sudden occlusion before
partition obligatory sun
too bright tearing the
throat sliding intemperate
parchment for hide
recall recurrence monstrous
lineage parade of
gently stewing fossils
portraits settling
on the dark green
walls of the dark
green hall a
digestion too slow
the accretion of
a system tightly
packed congealing
the live studio
audience horned into
bucket seats if we
survive the day there’s
a shot at the grand prize
invoking memories
forty foot drops
parched bramble my
head too slow
inaccurate my
feeble morning and
dreadful maps
obscuring the timeline
killing the story
I thought I saw you
on TV
baying for blood
couldn’t be sure
doubting your steady
accretion of narrative
it’s unguent
impossible corrections
a steady balm of
too slow morningstarts
hello hello an
empty half I
thought I’d be like weather
seems better more
fitting come back
without you my
mouth is dry my
channels are scrambled
the air is ointment
too heavy with
blossom the grass
too soft to believe
afterwards you’d say
that’s what I call
direct treatment of the thing
swimming in out
too slow morning vision too
dry too
everything

Matt wine tasting (in Source, his deli in Ormskirk. Do visit! See here.)
~

It wouldn’t be unreasonable to say I owe a great deal of my working practices and the evolution of my poetics to my time at Edge Hill, both on the MA and further as a member of the Poetry and Poetics Research Group. The MA opened my eyes to some of the transformational practices which have become a part of my poetics, and simply spending time with dedicated and talented writers has driven my own writing further than I ever expected it to, and into some unexpected places.  It compelled me to take my own work seriously (not a lesson to be underestimated) and quietly nudged me in the direction of a little more intellectual rigour than I might otherwise have employed.
It gave me a permission to continue, and obligated me to take risks. It let me celebrate the mundane and then told me sternly to try harder, it tried hard not to roll its eyes when I got a bit too smug, and was always compassionate, warm and thoughtful. It also still owes me a fiver, but that’s another story.

Matt reading at the Walker Gallery, the Year of Culture
 
Two Books

Delete Recover Delete http://www.knivesforksandspoonspress.co.uk/deleterecoverdel.html
L39 http://www.erbacce-press.com/#/matt-fallaize/4538954968

Other web works

Some work in Stride http://www.stridemagazine.co.uk/Stride%20mag%202008/June%202008/matt%20fallaize%20poems%20may%2008.htm

Blog  http://coastaltown.blogspot.co.uk/

Recently updated details of the MA in Creative Writing at Edge Hill may be accessed here.


Matt reading at the Tate Liverpool