Following last month’s controversial GCSE poetry row, Matt Abbott looks at the state of poetry in British schools, and how a well-needed change could be on the horizon. Click here to have a read.
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Matt’s TSOTA column: Celebrating Yorkshire poetry
onTo mark this year’s Yorkshire Day, Matt’s August column for The State of the Arts champions five Yorkshire poets: Toria Garbutt, Kirsty Taylor, Andrew McMillan, Nadine Aisha Jassat and Helen Mort. Click here to read it!
Matt’s TSOTA column: Poetry versus privilege
onThis month, Matt Abbott uses his The State of the Arts column to look at how poetry can help us to understand and navigate privilege, and in particular, white privilege. Have a read of it here.
Matt’s TSOTA column: Poetry making a difference
onThis month’s column celebrates the BBC’s ‘Make a Difference in poetry’ campaign, which saw 40 poets from around England commissioned to pen something about the lockdown. It also features a quick round-up of other online spoken word poetry activity. Click here to read it!
Matt’s TSOTA column: Poetry is lockdown’s language
onIn this month’s spoken word column for The State of the Arts, Nymphs & Thugs founder Matt Abbott declares poetry as being the official language of lockdown. Inspiration from Salena Godden, Erin Bolens and more. Click here to read it.
Matt Abbott’s ‘A Life of Wearing White EP [Part 2]’
onAs you may have seen, Part 1 of Matt Abbott‘s ‘A Life of Wearing White EP’ was released on Good Friday. You can buy it through our Bandcamp site and find shortcuts to the release in all of the major digital stores here.
This Friday, Part 2 followed and is available to stream or download here. We get a much bigger cut if you buy it directly through us, and 50% of the profits are being donated to the Leeds Fans Food Bank, so if it makes little difference to you either way then please use our Bandcamp.
Thanks to all of those who’ve bought Part 1 already!
Roaring 20s Radio episode 5 available as a podcast
onIn case you missed today’s episode of Roaring 20s Radio, it’s now available as a podcast in most of the usual places including Spotify and Apple Music. Click here for the podcast links to Episode 5: The Isolation tapes.
This episode features Salena Godden, Amah-Rose Abrams and Matt Abbott recording their own individual segments whilst socially distancing. As well as the usual round-ups, they have special guest recordings and music tracks to make one big juicy episode.
Episode 6 will be broadcast on Soho Radio‘s Culture channel on Saturday 9 May from 4-6pm. You can follow the show on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Happy listening!
Matt Abbott’s ‘A Life of Wearing White EP [Part 1]’
onOur first release of the new decade will be Matt Abbott‘s ‘A Life of Wearing White EP’, which will be released over two halves this Friday (10 April) and the following Friday (17 April).
Each half will contain three poems capturing Matt’s life as a Leeds United fanatic, including the centenary poem which was shared by the club on their 100th birthday in October. The artwork for Part 1 features a bespoke canvas by an LUFC street artist known as the Burley Banksy.
Part 1 is available to pre-order through our Bandcamp site here, and is available to pre-save in Spotify here. It’ll appear in all major digital providers this Friday for your streaming or downloading pleasure.
Also, 50% of the profits from this release will be donated to Leeds Fans Food Bank. We hope you enjoy.
Matt’s TSOTA column: International Women’s Day 2020
onThis month’s ‘LIVEwire’ spoken word poetry column in The State of the Arts sees Matt Abbott shine a spotlight on ten of his favourite female poets, to mark International Women’s Day 2020. Click here to have a read!
Nymphs & Thugs 