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The Friday Poem

A poem every Friday

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Head and shoulders photo of Rachael. She has short brown hair and glasses. She has her baby daughter in a sling across her chest.

Rachael Matthews

is a poet and psychoanalytic psychotherapist living in Sussex, UK with her wife and their baby daughter. She is recently back from more than a decade in NYC where she trained and worked at a non-profit clinic (specializing in trauma and creativity – the focus of her doctoral research). Her debut pamphlet do not be lulled by the dainty starlike blossom was published by The Emma Press in 2021. It touches on queer family-making and working class childhood. 

    Illustration showing a stylised dandelion head with the seeds blowing around. A red ribbon curls across the page.

    A tinderbox to light all the world’s wanting

    Rachael Matthews reviews The Home Child by Liz Berry (Chatto & Windus, 2023)
    Head and shoulders photo of Rachael. She has short brown hair and glasses. She has her baby daughter in a sling across her chest.

    What does Rachael Matthews say?

    If you widen the definition of poetry to include what’s thinkable and worded but unspoken, I’ve always made poems ...
    illustration showing a woman with blue skin covered in images, light blue leaves intertwine with pink flowers, a yellow sun on each breast.

    Finishing mummy’s pictures

    Rachael Matthews reviews The Illustrated Woman by Helen Mort (Chatto & Windus, 2022)
    Head and shoulders photo of Rachael. She has short brown hair and glasses. She has her baby daughter in a sling across her chest.

    Castaway Companions

    Castaway poet Rachael Matthews choses poems by Jennifer L Knox, Adrienne Rich, and Kathleen Jamie for her desert island stay
    three book covers in a fan shape, one has blue and grey vertical stripes, one has a pattern of hexagonal cells a bit like a hive with a black and white bee on it, one is green with a painting of a mother and daughter

    Three pamphlets: Erica Gillingham, Stephen Payne and Khadija Rouf

    Rachael Matthews reviews The Human Body is a Hive by Erica Gillingham, Richie McCaffery reviews The Wax Argument by Steven Payne, and Bruno Cooke reviews House Work by Khadija Rouf
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    03/05/2023

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    Stephen Payne

    Stephen Payne

    This page shows the reviews and features that Stephen Payne has contributed to The Friday Poem.

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