The Number Poems

By Matthew Welton

The Number Poems occupies the playful middle ground between tradition and experiment. An innovative and unconventional poet, Welton presents us with poems which fuse techniques like rhyme or iambic metre with a playfully postmodern aesthetic, creating new forms that unfold as sets of variations. Fascinated by poetic form but bored by the idea of writing sonnets or sestinas, Welton peppers his poems with extreme alliteration and crazy mathematical vocabulary to give us a selection box of experiments in working within formal constraints.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Carcanet Press Ltd.
• Release date: Jan 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9781784102234

Matthew Welton

Matthew Welton's poems take a playful approach to language and often blur the boundaries between poetry and other forms, such as fiction, music and visual art. His three previous Carcanet books are: The Book of Matthew (2003), We needed coffee but we'd got ourselves convinced that the later we left it the better it would taste, and, as the country grew flatter and the roads became quiet and dusk began to colour the sky, you could guess from the way we retuned the radio or unfolded the map and commented on the view that the tang of determination had overtaken our thoughts, and when, fidgety and untalkative but almost home, we drew up outside the all-night restaurant, it felt like we might just stay in the car, listening to the engine and the gentle sound of the wind (2009) and The Number Poems (2016). Matthew Welton was born in Nottingham, lives in Nottingham, and teaches creative writing at the University of Nottingham.