Matt Black is a Sheffield poet whose most recent work is The Cooling Towers Farewell (CD version with music from Jack's Records or 0114 2554030). He is appearing tonight at the Lantern Theatre in Nether Edge.
Which book are you currently reading? I've just finished The Twits, enjoying Roald Dahl afresh through work for the National Year of Reading – giving free copies of his wonderful autobiography, Boy, to school groups and helping t
hem act out the chapter where he has his adenoids taken out without any anaesthetic. Props – a large saw and some of my dentist's choicest instruments, a pair of adenoids, some blood. Mr Twit's beard is great.
Which magazine do you most often buy?I don't buy any magazines most often – but browse friends' mags with pleasure. Anything is worth a browse in my view. Most recent browse – Architecture Weekly, fab stuff.
What, where and when do you read? Almost anything - mostly fiction and poetry, but accessible history and politics and philosophy. I dip and dive lots, and am really good at not finishing books, but still feeling like I've got a lot from them. Where? on the sofa, in my back garden (when it's not raining), in bed, on trains.
What was the first book you remember reading?AA Milne's When We Were Very Young. Still love those poems, the joy and sadness of sitting halfway down the stairs, neither up nor down. And the rhythm of James James Morrison Morrison Weatherby George Dupree...
Which books would you take to a desert island? A complete Shakespeare and Spike Milligan, for wonder, laughter, crying, a desert island recipe book, and an anthology of very beautiful calming poems called Poems for A Desert Island.
Do you have a favourite picture book or illustration?Drawing Number One from the Little Prince – and his explanation that the grown-ups think it is a hat, but it is actually a boa constrictor digesting an elephant – which is all about believing in your imagination. Plus the Little Prince on his planet drawings. And The Numbskulls from The Beano – my favourite reference point for thinking about what is really going inside us (that is, along with explanations gleaned from David Attenborough animal programmes.)
Which writer would you most like to meet and what would you ask them? Shakespeare, how would you describe a pizza? Shakespeare, how would you describe the credit crunch?
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