• Skip to main content
  • Skip to header right navigation
  • Skip to site footer
The Friday Poem

The Friday Poem

A poem every Friday

  • About
    • Masthead
    • Contributors
  • Archive
    • Search the archive
    • Friday Poems
    • Reviews
    • Features
  • Subscribe

Contributor page

Mat Riches

is ITV’s poet-in-residence (they don’t know this). His work’s been in a number of journals and magazines, most recently New Statesman, Wild Court, The High Window and Finished Creatures. He co-runs the Rogue Strands poetry evenings, reviews for SphinxReview, The High Window and London Grip, and has a pamphlet due out from Red Squirrel Press in 2023. He’s on Twitter as @matriches and blogs at Wear The Fox Hat.

    Painting of leaves on a gold background, There is bay, and possibly corn.

    Alive as the bay tree

    Mat Riches reviews Variety Turns by Christopher Arksey (Broken Sleep Books, 2024)
    Abstract image showing a black circle on a white background containing blue, orange and red splodges. Some spill over the page outside the circle. Landsick? Maybe.

    Our version of the sea not quite knowing how to touch the land

    Mat Riches reviews Landsick by Genevieve Carver (Broken Sleep Books, 2023)
    The background is waves of pink and light blue. On top is a line drawing showing hands holding a heart shape with the word 'cursed' on it.

    recently i’ve been daydreaming of pete davidson

    Mat Riches reviews Poems For Pete Davidson by Ella Sadie Guthrie (Broken Sleep, 2022)
    Part of book cover showing Kite form by Mike Barlow — a piece of abstract art (because we have learnt by now that nothing says competent poet more than a bit of random abstract artwork). Painted driftwood is the background to geometric shapes in shades of blue. These are criss crossed with bits of fine string. Told you ... poetry.

    To walk, move the ground backwards

    Mat Riches reviews Spider Time by William Gilson (Wayleave Press, 2022)
    Now, If you have been paying attention you will have noticed my increasing frustration with book covers that really show no effort. This one is kind of pinkish with a cartridge paper like lined texture, almost as if they hade made the cover from, well, pinkish cartridge paper.

    Images of aftermath

    Mat Riches reviews Exposed Staircase by Will Eaves (Rack Press, 2022)
    A photograph showing an open hand with some dried flowers on it. The background is pink

    Trains necklacing the night

    Mat Riches reviews Climacteric by Jo Bratten (Fly On The Wall Press, 2022)
    What looks like an acrylic painting of vines, berries and white flowers.

    You make a mirrorball out of the rain

    Mat Riches reviews Glut by Ramona Herdman (Nine Arches, 2022)
    Naive painting of the backs of two people sitting on a wall, one has a red headscarf and orange skirt, one is dressed in black

    The cruelty and largesse of high water

    Mat Riches reviews Summer / Break by Richie McCaffery (Shoestring, 2022)
    Part of a painting of an Old Testament scene where white-bearded patriarch Methuselah has instructed Noah to open a prophetic scroll which foretells the flood sent by God. Circling ravens add to the sense of foreboding, while antediluvian revellers continue their dancing in the middle distance, oblivious of the devastation to come.

    The end of history?

    Mat Riches reviews You have no normal country to return to by Tom Sastry (Nine Arches, 2022)
    Matt Riches

    What does Mat Riches say?

    I got into poetry by accident. I remember writing some sort of rhyming thing around the age of five ...
    Three pamphlet covers arranged in a fan shape, one has a health worker in PPE on a blue background, one is yellow with black text running down the centre of the page and one is half white with purple text , the other half has what may be a woodcut in what may be ethnic patterns.

    Three pamphlets: Martin Figura, Leontia Flynn and Naush Sabah

    Khadija Rouf reviews My Name is Mercy by Martin Figura (Fair Acre, 2021), Hilary Menos reviews Nina Simone is Singing by Leontia Flynn (Mariscat Press, 2021), and Mat Riches reviews Litanies by Naush Sabah (Guillemot, 2021)
    Three pamphlet covers arranged in a fan shape, one has a photograph of a river crossing sand to the sea, one has what looks like an abstract pattern of leaves in shades of brown and one is very pale green with block text in a kind of marbled pattern.

    Three pamphlets: Matthew Hollis, Holly Singlehurst and Gboyega Odubanjo

    Steven Lovatt reviews Leaves by Matthew Hollis, Mat Riches reviews The Sea Turned Thick as Honey by Holly Singlehurst, and Hilary Menos reviews Aunty Uncle Poems by Gboyega Odubanjo
    Black and white image showing mathematical drawings and equations.

    Let trigons be trigons

    Mat Riches reviews The Windmill Proof by Stephen Payne (HappenStance, 2021)
    Three book covers. One with six colourful graphics including a bear and a blow up flamingo, one pink sparkle with a chrome compact mirror and one green with black and dark green text

    Three pamphlets: Richie McCaffery, Phoebe Stuckes and Julia Bird

    Mat Riches reviews Coping Stones by Richie McCaffery, Emma Simon reviews The One Girl Gremlin by Phoebe Stuckes and Hilary Menos reviews is, thinks Pearl by Julia Bird
    Front cover of book 'When I Think of my Body as a Horse' by Wendy Pratt, showing a horse with musculature visible

    Body, you are beautiful, you are beautiful

    Mat Riches reviews When I Think of my Body as a Horse by Wendy Pratt (Smith|Doorstop, 2021)
    Visions of Juana

    Visions of Juana

    Mat Riches reviews Citadel by Martha Sprackland (Liverpool University Press, 2020)
    Crop from cover of RENDANG by Will Harris, bright red blue and yellow letters on white

    You can never know for certain whose head you’re in

    Mat Riches reviews RENDANG by Will Harris (Granta, 2020), winner of the Forward Prize for Best First Collection 2020
    Share on X (Twitter) Share on Facebook Share on Email
    25/01/2022

    Read this next

    Matthew Stewart

    Matthew Stewart

    This page shows the features and reviews that Matthew Stewart has contributed to The Friday Poem.

    Site Footer

    If you like what you see and want to help us continue in our quest to brighten the online poetry landscape, you can donate a few quid to The Friday Poem.
    Oh look – here’s a button that will take you straight to our donation page on Ko-Fi !

    .

    • About us
    • Contact
    • Privacy
    • Mentions Légales

    Copyright © 2025 · The Friday Poem · All Rights Reserved · follow the Friday Poem on Twitter · follow the Friday Poem on Facebook · ISSN  2968-7675 follow the Friday Poem follow the Friday Poem on

    Websites need cookies, it's quite the thing nowadays. We use as few as possible. Okay