Arts Features

Until I listened to Matt Harvey, it never occurred to me that you could rhyme crikey with psyche. But you can, and he does in his lovely tribute to Pam Ayres, a poem entitled Oil of Eulogy.

Matt, who lives in Totnes, is one of the country's leading comic poets. He tours the UK, making people laugh; he hosts the Wondermentalist cabaret evenings in Totnes and he's one of the resident poets on BBC Radio 4's Saturday Live arts programme.

He also finds time to pen a column for the Guardian and, just before Christmas 2008, he had his first children's book published. Shopping with Dad features illustrations by Miriam Latimer and has gone down a storm with Matt's five-year-old twin boys, Tom and Finn.

Previously, he self-published four poetry collections before the publication of his first 'proper' book, as he terms it, The Hole in the Sum of my Parts.

Although a comic poet, much of his work has a message.

In January 2009, he appeared in BBC South West's Inside Out programme about transition towns. Totnes is a transition town - where the local community gets together to tackle the issue of peak oil and climate change.

His poem, Less is More, gets the message across in a way which makes you smile rather than yawn.

Matt has created a superhero called Empathman

"I'm quietly green, but I'm not an activist," said Matt. "I'm one of the many people who look around and think 'I should do more' and I've done benefits for the local Transition Town group.

"Less can be more - less cars, more bikes, less colouring, more taste, for example. But the poem is cheery and sunny - it's not wagging a finger. I've just moved and we've got a vegetable plot, and that's starting to come into my work more."

After moving about the country quite a bit in his early years, Matt settled in Totnes at the age of 20, which means he's lived there for 26 years: "I'm a rooted blow-in," he says. "I've been here longer than anywhere else.

"It's nice to have somewhere that I can call home and I always start my set by saying I'm from Totnes. It seems to be a well-known place - everyone knows about Totnes."

For Radio 4's Saturday Live show, he writes a poem the day before, selecting a topic from the week's big events - and it can't be over one minute long.

One day, he read his tribute to Pam Ayres when she was in the studio as guest poet: "She was there so she had to say she liked it!

"But when I was doing a show in Stroud, she was in the audience and I didn't do it that evening because I didn't want to embarrass her. I thought it would be tactless."

Matt's latest creation is Empathman: "He's a superhero," explains Matt. "He fights crime through his advanced listening skills and he has the ability to stay open and vulnerable in a tight situation.

"He has this effect of reaching people's consciousness - he's ever so Totnes. He's just been commissioned for a Radio 4 series in June and I'm lobbying for it to be recorded in Totnes, where he was born.

"His background is that he was married to Stella, and she was always trying to get him to a Relate counsellor. But his life changed when he took part in trials of an anti-pessimism drug for middle aged men who struggle to keep their hopes up.

"I do him at the cabaret, and he tells the audience how things are going."

For Matt, things couldn't be going much better. Find out more by visiting his official website, and the Wondermentalist site - both are linked from this page.

And you can watch him recite Less is More and Oil of Eulogy, by clicking onto the video links.