Paul Munden

Paul Munden has published five collections, most recently The Bulmer Murder (Recent Work Press, 2017) and Chromatic (UWA Publishing, 2017). He was reader for Stanley Kubrick from 1988–98, and has been Director of the UK’s National Association of Writers in Education (NAWE) since 1994. He has worked as conference poet for the British Council and edited Feeling the Pressure: poetry and science of climate change (British Council, 2008). In 2015 he took up a position as Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Canberra, where he is also Program Manager for the International Poetry Studies Institute (IPSI), running the annual Poetry on the Move festival. He is Associate Editor of Axon: Creative Explorations and the literary journal, Meniscus, and co-editor with Nessa O’Mahony of Metamorphic: 21st century poets respond to Ovid (Recent Work Press, 2017).

States of Poetry Series Three - ACT | 'Road Closed' by Paul Munden

States of Poetry ACT - Series Three • 31 May 2018

Road Closed was emphatic, but the rusty sign hung on an open gate,allowing him to kid himselfand drive on through –up the narrow sandy trackin an erratic sequence of hairpin bends towards the summit, and as he continued, with ever less option to reverse, he began to forget the warning, his lapsed judgement eclipsedby glimpses of magnificencebeyond – hills, foldingto a pale blue infinity ... (read more)

States of Poetry Series Three - ACT | 'With daily practice' by Paul Munden

States of Poetry ACT - Series Three • 31 May 2018

With daily practice his stiff fingers founda music of their own,the muscle memory of his arma rhythm akinto the unique routine of a bird of paradise,waiting for her to cometo his patch of groundand allow him to impress. Paul Munden ... (read more)

States of Poetry Series Three - ACT | 'The Four Seasons' by Paul Munden

States of Poetry ACT - Series Three • 31 May 2018

(Il Cimento dell’ Armonia e dell’ Inventione) after Vivaldi for Nigel Kennedy ... (read more)

States of Poetry Series Three - ACT | 'The violin' by Paul Munden

States of Poetry ACT - Series Three • 31 May 2018

The violin perched, slack-strung,on the dark wooden sideboardof your Palermitan apartmentopposite the cathedral,a gift you didn’t yet knowhow to tune, let alone play. Your guests ignored it,heading straight for the plates of cheese, olives, bread,and wine in plastic flagonsfrom the market, musicflowing from an amplified phone. Smokers braved the narrow stone balcony high above the lines of tr ... (read more)

States of Poetry Series Three - ACT | 'What he overhears' by Paul Munden

States of Poetry ACT - Series Three • 31 May 2018

What he overhears is the tumble of dried fruit – cherries, currants, raisins, sultanas – and the rest is imagined: cinnamon, the grated rind of an orange, sifted flour … then there’s a crack – ‘never mind, let’s try another!’ – and he pictures the smashed yolk wiped from the floor before the comic repeat, but he forges on with his own task, and later lets a quarter bottle of cog ... (read more)