Number Poems - Softcover

'It arrives with a unique and distinct sensibility; his poems create their own evocative and elusive worlds. There is a kind of relaxed quizzical sensuality running throughout, an easy, compelling confidence.' The Guardian; 'You're unlikely to read anything like it ... poems are rarely so curious, precise and committed to their enquiry.' Jack Underwood; 'A poet who has consistently produced some stunningly beautiful work.' Dave Gorman, the Observer

Matthew Welton is a poet enchanted by form and process. Many of the Number Poems abide by subtle patterns or constraints, creating symmetries in the arrangement of sentences, lines, words, or metrical feet. As with good architecture, however, Welton's rules and methods resist exclamation; rather, they are the framework upon which are established localised ambiances, be they of warmth or dazzlement, the home or the dream. Other sequences, such as the mind-altering 'Melodies for the meanwhile', begin with a palette of words and images and recombine them kaleidoscopically. By adding layers of colour and sound, Welton composes a modulating sensory wave. Even in silence, we do not so much read these poems as perform them.