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    Hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica
    Hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica
    Hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica
    Ebook103 pages34 minutes

    Hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica

    By Matt Merritt

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    Read a sample poem for free - just click the Extracts tab above.
    Matt Merritt's second collection, Hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica, is alive with a rare frequency all of its own – it is a precise and rewarding music for the soul, the heart, and the head.
    These are poems that take a distinctive route through landscapes rich with legend and wildlife, finding elegies written in the night sky on the way home from the pub, or quiet epics raging in the pages of memories and neglected histories. Matt Merritt has an ear for the exact notes, be they in a major or a minor key, and these gently insistent poems continue to resound long after their first reading.
    "In Matt Merritt's finely honed new collection, lives are lived in liminal spaces, shadow selves are reconstructing history and time is no time at all. These are quick-witted poems, made of toughened glass and ground-down clocks."

    Helen Ivory
    "Matt Merritt's new book is a cracker – technically adventurous and thematically cohesive. His work is based on a close attention to the world and a scrupulous approach to getting that world into verse. His subject is landscape, the rural and urban landscapes of the Midlands, which he uses as a cipher to talk about personal and community life. We see the surfaces of the contemporary, but also the deep presence of the historical poking through – the planning of new towns and the persistence of floodplains. This is the psychogeography of modern Leicestershire. Reading these poems I felt my own consciousness calming and concentrating – which is as good a way as any of saying that they are beautiful."

    Tony Williams
    Matt Merritt's debut full collection, Troy Town, was published by Arrowhead Press in 2008, and a chapbook, Making The Most Of The Light, by HappenStance in 2005. He studied history at Newcastle University and counts Anglo-Saxon and medieval Welsh poetry among his influences, as well as the likes of R.S. Thomas, Ted Hughes and John Ash. He was born in Leicester and lives nearby, works as a wildlife journalist and is an editor of Poets On Fire.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNine Arches Press
    Release dateJul 26, 2018
    ISBN9781911027577
    Hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica

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      Book preview

      Hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica - Matt Merritt

      cover.jpg

      hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica

      hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica

      Matt Merritt

      ISBN: 978-0-9565514-4-3

      Copyright © Matt Merritt 2010

      Cover image: Optic at Portland Bill Lighthouse

      © Jane Commane 2010

      Author Photograph: © Mark Cureton

      All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, recorded or mechanical, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

      Matt Merritt has asserted his right under Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

      First published November 2010 by:

      Nine Arches Press

      Unit 14, Sir Frank Whittle Business Centre,

      Great Central Way, Rugby.

      CV21 3XH

      United Kingdom

      www.ninearchespress.com

      Printed in Britain by:

      imprintdigital.net

      Seychelles Farm,

      Upton Pyne,

      Exeter

      EX5 5HY

      www.imprintdigital.net

      img1.jpg

      Matt Merritt’s second collection is hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica. His debut full collection, Troy Town, was published by Arrowhead Press in 2008, and a chapbook, Making The Most Of The Light, by HappenStance in 2005. He studied history at Newcastle University and counts Anglo-Saxon and medieval Welsh poetry among his influences, as well as the likes of R.S. Thomas, Ted Hughes and John Ash. He was born in Leicester and lives nearby, works as a wildlife journalist, is an editor of Poets On Fire, and blogs at http://polyolbion.blogspot.com.

      ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

      Thanks are due to the following publications, in which some of these poems, or versions of them, first appeared:

      Anon, BBC Wildlife, Blackbox Manifold, Brittle Star, The Delinquent, Gists & Piths, Horizon Review, Ink, Sweat and Tears, Iota, London Poetry Pearl, New Walk, The New Writer, Ouroboros Review, Peony Moon, Poetry Nottingham, The Reader, The Slab, The Smoking Poet, Tears In The Fence, Umbrella, Under The Radar and Stripe (Templar Poetry Anthology 2009).

      ‘Unquiet’ was originally written for the book Vagabond Holes: David McComb and The Triffids (Fremantle Press, 2009).

      For advice, proof-reading and encouragement, many thanks to Tom Bailey, Lizzy Dening, Matthew Stewart and James W. Wood. For constant use of the reference library that is his house, I am grateful to Kirk Parsons. And for their support, patience, editorial expertise and willingness to listen to the same poems at readings again and again, I am greatly indebted to Jane Commane and Matt Nunn.

      CONTENTS

      Prelude for Glass Harmonica

      Uchronie

      English Literature

      Unquiet

      The American version

      With Immediate Effect

      Uchronie

      A Fixer-Upper

      Farewell, fantastic Venus

      Halcyon

      Treaty House

      Dio Boia

      Lyonnesse

      Your Search Also Found

      Things Left In Hotel Rooms

      Request Hour At The Numbers Station

      Stanislav Petrov

      Truth Or Consequences

      Worst Case Scenario

      January

      Glass

      Maps & Legends

      Dreams From The Anchor Church

      1984

      The sea at Ashby de la Zouch

      The Archaeologist

      Leland’s New Year Gift To The King, 1546

      Seven Whistlers

      from Tesserae

      St Beuno Meets

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