With celebratory verses on vegetables and vagueness; insects and alcohol; kippers, quantum physics and recycling, Matt Harvey’s keenly awaited second collection exuberantly reaffirms his status as someone who’s really good at this sort of thing.
Horticultural, whimsical, ecological, political and just plain funny, Where Earwigs Dare contains a rich biodiversity of verse – some recycled from Matt’s appearances on Radio 4’s Saturday Live and his stint writing Desktop Poetry for The Guardian, others that bubbled doggedly up of their own accord from a grim sense of joie de vivre.
There’s enough stuff about potatoes and leeks, about clouds, sheds and slugs to qualify as a Green Book – and enough about kippers and cows, pain relief, petty theft and public nudity to qualify as a typical Harvey offering.
There is also an introduction to Empath Man – contemporary superhero who fights crime through his advanced listening skills and ability to stay open and vulnerable in a tight situation.
Slug
The company of leeks
Cloud appreciation
A watched clock
Streaker
The full empathic mile
Through a glass hardly
Empath man
Think before you print this poem
Footprints
The innocent everyday ocean
About a bee
Water-cooler moments
Silence of the dominoes
Bubbles
The amazing memory man’s magical memories
My kind of town
Two-way domestic Totnestic acrostic
Jazz Geometry
Benediction
The whole potato
Oh Potato
Cows
Rob the Rubbish
Cuddling with humans
If I said you had a bit of a problem would you hold it against me?
Not tonight dear, I have a Blackberry
Don’t ask
Ballad of the tropical systematic botanist
The prune stone oracle [illustrated by David Hughes]
Where earwigs dare
Home
Bread
Present tense
Less is more
Kippers for life
On the tendency toward gender stereotyping among homeworkers
Wilfred from Ilford
The neither here or there man
Upturn for the turnip
Supermarket
Let them speak Latin
Works perks
Ho bloody ho
Mind the gap
Client of the Year
Wondermental things
Life is so much easier with effective analgesia
Fly
Charge of the late brigade
e-sonnet
Botox
Onward city moments
By 5pm Tuesday
"With wordplay, wistfulness, poignancy and po-faced cheek, Matt Harvey's second collection of poems is an amusing and rewarding read."
- Positive News - Winter 10/11
Matt Harvey
Poet, enemy of all that’s difficult and upsetting, Matt Harvey performs up and down the country at festivals, cabarets, conferences and colleges. He is founder of Wondermentalist, the comedy-infused, musically-enhanced slightly interactive poetry cabaret with resident superhero. His consuming interest in the core concerns of contemporary society has led him into many interesting shops.
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