Simpson, Matt 1936- (Matthew William Simpson)

PERSONAL:

Born May 13, 1936, in Bootle, Lancashire, England; son of William Matthew (a rigger) and Ada Mary Simpson; married Monika Ingrid Weydert (an actress), June 14, 1961; children: David, Catherine Anne. Ethnicity: "White." Education: Cambridge University, M.A. (with honors), 1958; University of Liverpool, certificate of education, 1959. Hobbies and other interests: Film, music.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Liverpool, England. E-mail—matt.s13@tiscali.co.uk.

CAREER:

English teacher at boys' grammar school in Wirral, Cheshire, England, 1959-61; Studio School of English, Cambridge, England, teacher of English as a foreign language, 1961-64; Millbank College of Commerce, Liverpool, England, teacher of English as a foreign language, 1964-66; Liverpool Hope University, Liverpool, lecturer, 1966-70, senior lecturer in English, beginning 1970. University of Liverpool, part-time lecturer, 1980-98. Windows Project, chair; gives poetry readings and writing workshops.

MEMBER:

Halewood Arts Association (honorary president).

WRITINGS:

POETRY

Letters to Berlin, Driftwood Publications (Bootle, Lancashire, England), 1971.

A Skye Sequence, Driftwood Publications (Bootle, Lancashire, England), 1972.

Collage One, Raven Books, 1972.

Watercolour from an Approved School, Toulouse Press (Liverpool, England), 1975.

Uneasy Vespers, Windows Project (Liverpool, England), 1977.

Making Arrangements, Bloodaxe Books (Newcastle upon Tyne, England), 1982.

See You on the Christmas Tree, Windows Project (Liverpool, England), 1984.

Dead Baiting, Four Eyes Press, 1989.

An Elegy for the Galosherman: New and Selected Poems, Bloodaxe Books (Newcastle upon Tyne, England), 1990.

The Pig's Thermal Underwear (for children), Headland (Wirral, Cheshire, England), 1993.

To Tasmania with Mrs. Meredith, Headland (Wirral, Cheshire, England), 1994.

On the Right Side of the Earth, Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery (Launceston, Tasmania, Australia), 1995.

Catching Up with History, Bloodaxe Books (Newcastle upon Tyne, England), 1995.

Somewhere down the Line, Shoestring Press (Nottingham, England), 1995.

Matt, Wes, and Pete (for children), Macmillan (London, England), 1995, reprinted as Lost Property Box, 1998.

Cutting the Clouds Towards, Liverpool University Press (Liverpool, England), 1998.

Getting There, Liverpool University Press (Liverpool, England), 2001.

(Editor, with John Lucas) The Way You Say the World: A Celebration for Anne Stevenson, compiled by John Lucas, Shoestring Press (Nottingham, England), 2003.

In Deep, Shoestring Press (Nottingham, England), 2006.

Work represented in anthologies. Contributor to periodicals, including Critical Survey, Edinburgh Review, Poetry Australia, Anglo-Welsh Review, Granta, London Review of Books, New Welsh Review, Outposts, Poetry Review, and Stride.

OTHER

Hugging the Shore: Collected Essays, Shoestring Press (Nottingham, England), 2003.

Nothing Extenuate: A Consideration of Shakespeare's Othello, Greenwich Exchange (London, England), 2003.

A Man Forbid: A Reading of Shakespeare's Macbeth, Greenwich Exchange (London, England), 2003.

Wise Hereafter: Observations on Shakespeare's The Tempest, Greenwich Exchange (London, England), 2004.

So Full of Shapes: A Reading of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, Greenwich Exchange (London, England), 2006.

Something of Great Constancy: A Reading of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Greenwich Exchange (London, England), 2006.

Focus on The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot, Greenwich Exchange (London, England), 2007.

SIDELIGHTS:

Matt Simpson once told CA: "Many of my poems look back at my upbringing, at family tensions in a close-knit Merseyside community with strong seafaring traditions."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Topping, Angela, editor, Making Connections: A Festschrift for Matt Simpson, Stride Publications (Exeter, England), 1996.

PERIODICALS

Times Literary Supplement, January 7, 1983, review of Making Arrangements, p. 17.