Dr Matthew Jarvis, BA (York), MA (York), PhD (Wales)
Anthony Dyson Fellow in Poetry
Research
Matthew Jarvis’s research focuses on the development of Welsh poetry in English since the 1960s and on British avant-garde poetry of the same period. He is particularly interested in environmental approaches to literature, and in ideas about the construction of Welsh space and place. A widely published essayist and reviewer, his first book was Welsh Environments in Contemporary Poetry (University of Wales Press, 2008). His current major project, An Introduction to Welsh Poetry in English, 1965-2005, will be published by the University of Wales Press in 2009/2010. His third volume, also with the University of Wales Press, will be a study of the poet Ruth Bidgood, for UWP’s ‘Writers of Wales’ series.
External Advisory Work
Formerly on the Committee of Poetry Wales, Matthew is a member of the English-Language Grants Panel of the Welsh Books Council.
Departmental Profile
As a research fellow, Matthew’s primary responsibility is to contribute to the Department’s research culture. Over 2008 and 2009, he is organising a series of invited lectures called ‘Reading Wales’, which will be published as a future edition of Trivium. He is also responsible for organising the Anthony Dyson Lecture Series of research papers on the English-language literature of Wales.
Publications
Monographs
Welsh Environments in Contemporary Poetry (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2008)
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'Matthew Jarvis's book is informed by a sophisticated use of ecocritical theory, and examines, through sensitive close readings, the ways in which a number of poets, including R. S. Thomas, Gillian Clarke, Mike Jenkins, and Christine Evans, envision rural and urban landscapes expressive of Welsh cultural identity. It is a groundbreaking study by virtue both of its emphasis on the poetic 'making' of environments in the Welsh context and the attention it pays to significant, lesser known poets alongside established figures. The combination of sophisticated theory with astute reading of poems in the context of a good understanding of the culture of Wales makes it an important book. It is both intellectually stimulating and, with its personal touches and consistently lucid style, a pleasure to read.' |
Articles, Essays, and Chapters in Books
'Hard Hats in Heather: Barry MacSweeney’s North-East', in Paul Batchelor, ed., Essays on Barry MacSweeney (Tarset, Northumberland: Bloodaxe; Newcastle: Newcastle University); forthcoming (2010)
'International Elements in Early Poetry Wales: A Response to Malcolm Ballin', Almanac: Yearbook of Welsh Writing in English, 13; forthcoming (2008-9)
'Saving the Earth: Wendy Mulford’s Salthouse', ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment; forthcoming (2009)
'Repositioning Wales: Poetry after the Second Flowering', in Daniel Williams, ed., Slanderous Tongues: Welsh Poetry in English 1970-2005 (Bridgend: Seren); forthcoming (2009)
'Energies of Commitment: Poetry and Politics in the 1980s', Poetry Wales, 44.4 (Spring 2009); forthcoming
'A Poetry of Diversification: New Voices of the 1970s', Poetry Wales, 44.3 (January 2009), pp. 43-48; in press
'Voices of Renewal: Anglophone Welsh Poetry in the 1960s’, Poetry Wales, 44.2 (Autumn 2008), 22-27
'An Absent Art? “Alternative” Poetry since the Second Flowering’, Poetry Wales, 44.1 (Summer 2008), 8-14
‘Barry MacSweeney’s Moorland Romance’, in Fiona Becket and Terry Gifford, eds, Culture, Creativity and Environment: New Environmentalist Criticism (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007), 181-196
‘Christine Evans’s Bardsey: Creating Sacred Space’, Welsh Writing in English: A Yearbook of Critical Essays, 11 (2006-2007), 188-209
‘Leslie Norris, In and Out of Place’, Poetry Wales, 42.2 (Autumn 2006), 35-39
‘The Politics of Place in the Poetry of Ian Davidson’, Welsh Writing in English: A Yearbook of Critical Essays, 10 (2005), 97-112
‘Towards a Poetics of Pleasure’, English Studies, 84.3 (June 2003), 239-49
‘Presenting the Past: Barry MacSweeney’s Cultural Memory’, Pretexts, 11.2 (2002), 147-57
‘Reading Redgrove: Two Modes of Transaction’, The Swansea Review, 18 ([1999]), 88-103
Editorial Work
Editor, with Patrick McGuinness, New Welsh Review, 74 (Winter 2006): Environment and Identity
Other Scholarly Pieces
‘The Practice of Poetry: Fiona Sampson Interviewed by Matthew Jarvis’, English, 56.214 (Spring 2007), 73-88
‘Writing on the Land’ (with Patrick McGuinness), New Welsh Review, 74 (Winter 2006), 6-7
‘Talking After Theory: An Interview with Terry Eagleton’ (with Liz Oakley-Brown), English, 207 (2004), 177-190
Recent Reviews
'Mike Jenkins, Walking on Waste’, New Welsh Review, 80 (Summer 2008), 79-80
‘Peter Finch, Selected Later Poems’, Poetry Wales, 43.3 (January 2008), 66-67
‘Ian Gregson, The New Poetry in Wales’, New Welsh Review, 78 (Winter 2007), 85-87
‘Ruth Bidgood, Symbols of Plenty: Selected Poems; Margaret Lloyd, A Moment in the Field: Voices from Arthurian Legend; Sam Adams, Missed Chances; Mercer Simpson, Early Departures, Late Arrivals: Poems Mainly Lyrical’, New Welsh Review, 77 (Autumn 2007), 69-70
‘Christine Evans, Growth Rings and Burning the Candle’, New Welsh Review, 74 (Winter 2006), 70-72
‘Variety Show: Simon Armitage, Tyrannosaurus Rex Versus the Corduroy Kid’, Poetry Review, 96.3 (October 2006), 98-100
‘Creature Thoughts: Richard Price, Louise Labé: Lute Variations with English Improvisations; Nicholas Murray, The Narrators’, Planet, 178 (August / September 2006), 104-05
‘Amongst Wreckage and Light: John Burnside, Selected Poems and A Lie About My Father’, Poetry Review, 96.2 (July 2006), 101-04
‘Lynette Roberts, Collected Poems’, Poetry Wales, 42.1 (Summer 2006), 35-38
‘Gwyneth Lewis, Chaotic Angels and Two in a Boat: A Marital Voyage’, New Welsh Review, 72 (Summer 2006), 85-88
‘Ifor Thomas, Body Beautiful; Lynne Rees, Learning How to Fall’, Planet, 176 (April / May 2006), 99-101
‘Graham Hartill, Cennau’s Bell: Poems 1980-2001; Cliff Forshaw, Trans’, Poetry Wales, 41.4 (Spring 2006), 67-69
‘Unquiet Landscapes: John Kinsella, The New Arcadia: Poems and Peripheral Light: Selected and New Poems’, Poetry Review, 96.1 (April 2006), 90-93
Recent Research Papers
'Becoming "Prifardd of English-speaking Wales': The Reception of R. S. Thomas in the 1960s and 1970s', Cliff Tucker Lecture in Poetry 2008, University of Wales Lampeter (6 March 2008)
‘London Welshman and the Poetry Revival: Cross-Currents in 1960s Welsh poetry in English’, Contempo Research Seminar, Department of English, Aberystwyth University (December 2007)
‘Chris Torrance: The Diversity of Habitation’, Travelling to New Worlds: Immigration, Emigration and the Experience of Wales (The Eighteenth Annual Conference of the Association for Welsh Writing in English), Gregynog Hall (April 2006)
‘The Spirituality of Place: Christine Evans’s Bardsey’, CREW Research Seminar, Department of English, University of Swansea (November 2005)
‘Reinhabiting Urban Space: Toxic Discourse and the Suppression of Environmental Consciousness’, Cityscapes, University of Wales, Aberystwyth (July 2004)
‘Landscape: Skin of the Earth/Skin of the Land’, Skin: Texture/Textuality/Word/Image, Institute of English Studies, London (April 2004)
