Hello beautiful, creative people!
We are heading full-steam into summer, and so we thought we'd soak up some sun in the park with July's featured poet: the brilliant Matt Alton! As always, you can read on or watch this interview by clicking the link below.
Hi! I'm Matt Alton, I'm a poet, I live in Brighton and I'm really excited to have had my first commission from Poems by Post!
Hi Matt! I remember the very first poem that I saw of yours, it was it was wonderfully recorded piece called 'Poetry Is The New Skateboarding'. Can you tell us a bit more about that?
Yes! So, I used to be a skateboarder, from the age of about 10 to the age of 18. It was my main physical outlet, social outlet, creative outlet, and then when I was 18 I developed Fibromyalgia, which is a chronic pain condition. That meant I wasn't able to skate any more, and it limited my life in many, many ways. But then at the age of 25, I went on a writing course. We were looking at seeds: the properties of seeds and their metaphorical qualities, their mythological qualities. I wrote some poems that I was pretty happy with… And it just completely changed my life.
So with that poem particularly, I was just thinking about the similarities between poetry and skateboarding. I said skateboarding was my creative practice, but I think only in the writing of that poem did I realise that it had been a creative practice.
In the two years that you've been writing poetry have you had much success in getting your poetry out there?
Yeah, I'm on my way there. I've had a poem published online on 'Ink, Sweat and Tears', and by the time this interview goes out there will be another two poems in a new publication called 'Flights', set up by Brighton Poets.
Yeah, so it's happening!
I know around Brighton as well, in various bookstores you've got your pamphlet available to buy: 'One of Few Examples of My Capacity to Rage'.
Right! I didn't expect to write a pamphlet at all. Last summer, I'd been writing for a year and I thought 'I've really written a lot', and I'd written a lot of poems I was really proud of. And I thought, well, why not create something I can give to a few friends and family members? I saw my brother who's an artist and started the design process, and really choosing the right poems for it, the right order.
And we thought, well, if I'm doing this, why make 10 when I could print 50 or 100, and see if I could sell some and make a bit of money? So yeah, we decided to print 100, I sold out of that first print run, I printed another 100 and of that second print run, I've got it in the feminist book shop in Brighton, and I've now got some in Ubu Books in the market in Brighton. It's been a great process to be able to share it that way.
Can you tell us about some of the themes within the pamphlet, and if you have a particular favourite poem within it?
There are four key themes. I was spending quite a lot of time outside, so there's a few poems reflecting that, what we could call ‘nature poems’. Some poems about childhood - I had been working in a school as a teaching assistant. And then there's some poems really tackling what it is to live in a body that is in pain all the time, and a body that people can't see as being in pain.
And then the last theme... I think my favourite poem in it is called 'A Letter to My Mum or One of Few Examples of My Capacity to Rage'. My Mum died just over five years ago, and writing about that has been... It's been an important thing for me to be able to do. The pamphlet takes its name from that poem, and I think that was a good title to choose because I tend to be quite a calm person and my feelings of anger don't tend to be able to come out. I think with poetry I've been able to… not necessarily channel my anger into writing, I think is a bit more nuanced than that, but I've been able to think and write and articulate myself and express, some of the stuff that's happened that's been really hard.
Are there any other projects that you're currently working on?
Yeah, I'm writing a fair amount. The past year's been really good for my development; I had the opportunity to do BBC Words First, which is a BBC spoken-word talent development scheme. There's a Brighton-based organisation called the Creative Writing Programme, I've done a class with them, and I've done a lot of workshops online as well.
And then in the future, in September, I've got a place on a Creative Writing and Education Master's at Goldsmiths. More development, more writing and more learning!
Something I did want to ask about is the poem that you've penned for our Poems by Post subscribers. It's a really great poem! Without giving too much away, what was running through your mind when you wrote this particular poem?
We've been through more than a year of a very strange and very stressful time, and I suppose what I was thinking was about taking a moment, and just checking in with yourself. I think I've always been quite anxious, but only really recently named it as that, and I think taking a bit of time and asking yourself, where am I? What's going on in my body? What's going on in my brain and my mind? I'm definitely a big believer in the fact that we're all embodied beings, and you can't separate mental health and physical health. So, yeah, the poem is about just checking in with yourself, and figuring out where you are.
Thanks Matt! We highly recommend checking out Matt's pamphlet, and the video for 'Poetry Is The New Skateboarding' on his Instagram (@mattaltonpoet).
