Praise for Boxing the Compass
“For the reader who revisits poems and is able to join in their making, there are many pleasures here.” Jane Routh, Magma
“Bryden displays a confidence which ensures that his first collection hits the target.” Louise Crossley, The Interpreter’s House
You can never escape yourself. Taking in childhood, teaching, Eastern Europe, relationships, illness and death, the narrator of Boxing the Compass ends up where he began, but with an altered perspective. As the nautical term of the title, which refers to a wind blowing from all 36 points of the compass in quick succession, implies figuratively, travel can lead you to change your mind and change it back.
The Night Sky
Who brings these star- and crescent-
shaped pastries, each filled with vanilla
or jam, to my bed each morning?
Such nursery shapes are clearly beneficent,
like knowing which berries are sour
and which are ripe by sight.
I stare past my desk to the window
and wipe my dreams like a slate.
Buy a copy here
Keats House, Boxing the Compass launch with Beatrice Garland 2013
Matt Bryden Poetry 