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Poet, columnist, enemy of all that’s difficult and upsetting, Matt Harvey performs up and down the country at festivals, cabarets, conferences and colleges. He is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4’s Saturday Live and for the last two years has written the Desktop Poetry slot in the Guardian. He is the creator of Empath Man, who recently had a mini-series on Radio 4 – “Very funny, very satirical” The Times. Matt’s recent Edinburgh show also garnered excellent reviews – like these from the Fest magazine and allthefestivals.com. He also featured in a Guardian EdFest podcast. Other podcasts can be found on Traydio.

News: Under the initiation and direction of Brampton Live Festival 2010, Matt has been invited to be one of eight artists involved in an exciting new project called “All Along The Wall” that will be based on the experiences of life around Hadrian’s Wall both ancient and modern.

It will comprise of eight internationally known performers (five songwriters and three performance poets) who will stay together in a ‘song house’ for a week near to the wall where they will write a 75 minute piece of new work. This will happen between the 26th and the 31st January and on the evening of the 31st January they will perform the piece for the first time to a live audience at The Wave Centre, Maryport. This performance will be recorded by Fellside Recordings and subsequently released as an album.

The two other poets will be:
Kate Fox – Recently commissioned to write and perform a poem about the first hundred days of Gordon Brown’s premiership for BBC1’s “The Daily Politics “.

Elvis McGonnagall – Stand up poet, armchair revolutionary and recumbent rocker….also 2006 “world poetry slam champion”.

The five songwriters are:
Rory McLeod – Modern day travelling troubadour, one man band, poet, story teller and multi instrumentalist.

Julie Matthews….. Voted “Best Duo” alongside Chris While at the BBC Folk Awards. Currently living in Cumbria.

Boo Hewerdine – Ivor Novello award nominee. Has written songs for Eddi Reader, KD Lang, Natalie Imbruglia and many others.

Jez Lowe – Singer songwriter from the north east. Tours all over the world with his band the Bad Pennies.

Ruth Notman….up and coming singer from Nottingham. Recently nominated as “Best Newcomer” at BBC Folk Awards

Tickets for the premiere of “All Along The Wall” are available from The Wave Centre, Maryport. The box office number is 01900 811450.

Other News:
The Songbook of Unsingable Songs – composer Stephen Deazley ‘s settings of Matt’s words – premiered in Glasgow on Nov 2nd and received rave reviews from the Herald and the Scotsman

Here are some links to recent clips of , The Hug, Torquay Boys and Curtains...

Recently the Open University commissioned Matt to write a poem celebrating their 40th anniversary, and Flavio Ferrari’s short film of Matt’s Centenary Icons poem is on video loop in The Science Museum.

Meanwhile the film on Transition Towns as broadcast on BBC1 South West in January is now on YouTube and the Transition Town podcast is quite good too. There are also youtube versions of Kippers for Life and Curtains

“Very funny…” Independent

“...not only funny but tender and true” Guardian

“fabulously understated” Dorset Echo

Matt’s latest book (for kids) Shopping with Dad is illustrated by Miriam Latimer and published by Barefoot Books. Meanwhile The Hole in the Sum of my Parts (pub. The Poetry Trust) is in its 3rd reprint as David Hughes' illustrations continue to lure people in…