Poetry review – THE LAST CORINTHIANS: Emma Storr is glad to find that Matthew Paul’s poems of personal reminiscence are welcoming and inclusive for the general reader
The Last Corinthians
Matthew Paul
Crooked Spire Press
ISBN 978-1-0684229-1-1
80pp £11.00
The Last Corinthians is a wonderful collection, varied in subject and poetic form and full of gentle wit. I was unfamiliar with the term ‘The Last Corinthians’ but learned that it refers to amateur sportsmen and women who play for the love of the game, rather than for money. The phrase can also mean people who have ‘unwavering integrity and are principled’. The poem that gives the collection its title doesn’t appear until the last but one page in the book. It is a nostalgic listing of famous players from the past and manages to pack in a lot of information while retaining rhythm and shape in carefully crafted tercets. In fact, many of the poems in this book contain lists of names of places, food or people, which could have been obtrusive but in Matthew Paul’s hands are a delight to read and often evocative of a particular memory.
The book is divided into three sections. Part 1, Heydays, reveals Paul’s skill in constructing poems in a variety of forms, often with subtle half-rhymes and rich imagery. There are two ekphrastic poems inspired by Edward Burra paintings and another “Edward Burra at the Gaiety, Hastings 1969”, which imagines Burra watching the film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang while suffering from a hangover. His friend and colleague, Bobby Helpmann, played the role of the Child Catcher. The poem makes uncomfortable reading with its references to war, antisemitism and child abduction, as suggested at the end of the poem in the phrase ‘the not-so-silver screen’.
Some of the people who appear in this first part of the book were unknown to me. I had never heard of the West Indian tipster Prince Monolulu. “Meeting the Prince” is a joyful narrative of a young woman who wins her bet on ‘Ruthless’ after getting the tip from the Prince on her way to work. We feel the urgency of Dora dashing out in her lunch hour:
to push through a fly-screen into side-street fug. Talk
stops – bar radio-pundits. She bowls up to the grille
to place her bets, and dallies back for shorthand tests.
The five quatrains in this poem have an unpredictable rhyme scheme and make use of assonance. The whole effect is filmic as we follow the story. The word ‘dallies’ cleverly evokes a past era and reminded me of the music hall song ‘My old man’ with the line ‘Don’t dilly dally on the way’.
“The Ballad of Mike Yarwood” demonstrates that being a celebrity can be short-lived and stressful. The ballad is written in rhyming tercets which bounce along satisfyingly, showing Paul’s skill in using rhyme and rhythm. Even if you haven’t seen Mike Yarwood ‘s impressions of comedians and politicians, you can appreciate the celebratory tone of the poem which opens with the line ‘The King of Impersonation’. As the narrative progresses, it is tragic to learn about Yarwood’s descent into alcoholism and obscurity. Despite his confidence on the stage and on TV in the 1970’s, he was an insecure and shy man who did not cope well with fame.
The next two sections in the collection are largely chronological. Part 2 is titled Black Forest Gateau and contains poems that take us from the narrator’s childhood through to adolescence and early adulthood. The poems are emotive without sentimentality. Food and music are poignant indicators of the past. In “Spent Matches”:
Teatime doesn’t wait for Dad: Hovis, Primula,
Shippam’s fish paste, allotment tomatoes, cress;
mini rolls, Penguins, cremated fruitcake;
These are some of the delights offered to the maternal grandparents when they are ferried over by their daughter to visit on ‘the second Thursday of every other month.’ Dad only appears at the end of the day after “Top of the Flops”, to take them home.
More food from the 1970’s appears in the poem “Entertaining”. The ‘mushroom vol-au-vents, / a cheese and pineapple hedgehog, and – yes! – Her Black Forest gateau,’ reveals what was considered the heights of sophisticated dining at the time. The poem is an affectionate and ironic snapshot dating from the narrator’s adolescence.
Another poem from the same era is “Double Chemistry”:
The hardest lads of 5N3 hold a smoke-ring competition
at the back of the lab, toking away on Benson
and Hedges sparked off the Bunsen
burners; while the rest, as always, toast squidgy pink
marshmallows.
The chemistry teacher Mrs Schwenk is clearly out of her depth and Mr Claggett, Head of Year, faces ridicule from the boys who refuse to own up to various misdemeanours. They just laugh in his face, leading to him calling them ‘a rabble of unemployable shits’. Again, the half-rhymes at the end of the lines add to the rhythm and humour of this poem.
Going to the dentist or following a fire evacuation procedure may seem unusual subjects but Paul is expert in transforming everyday life into humorous and engaging poems. There are also affectionate portraits of people from the past. In the poem “Whitehall (i.m. Karen Donovan)” we hear about a previous girlfriend of the narrator and in “Blindside Flanker” we meet a larger-than-life Australian man who has had several unusual encounters with animals.
Last time he rang, he’d been rugby-tackling a bunch
of jackass penguins for his sister’s doctoral research,
clasping those tarantula hands around braying bills,
inducing regurgitation into customised plastic pails –
Part 3 of the book is called Passing Places, a term that conveys both time and people passing. The narrator mentions his partner Lyn, a 17 year-old daughter and his declining parents. “On Muybridge Ward” is a tender and sad poem about the father lying on the ward with his eyes shut and being shaved by the auxiliary nurse Millie. He doesn’t seem to respond during the process but the poem ends:
Millie begins to towel-pat
his mustard-yellow cheeks. Dad resists: ‘Clear off!
Gertcha!’ Millie and I can’t help but laugh.
‘Well now, Michael, you look gorgeous!’ she cries.
For the briefest time, Dad opens both eyes.
Food and place feature with detailed observation in this part of the collection. In “Green Tomato Chutney” and “The Sneaton Medlar” you can almost taste the foods because of the delectable vocabulary used to describe them. And “Bleasdale” has these lovely lines:
…a modish display of tumbling
lapwings – lissom, harmonised suffragette
sashes – over ramsoms, becks and sheep.
Like all good writing, these poems give more when read and re-read because of their rich imagery, clever rhyming schemes and their shapes on the page. They are also highly original. I recommend The Last Corinthians with no hesitation and hope others will enjoy it as much as I have.
May 4 2026
London Grip Poetry Review – Matthew Paul
Poetry review – THE LAST CORINTHIANS: Emma Storr is glad to find that Matthew Paul’s poems of personal reminiscence are welcoming and inclusive for the general reader
The Last Corinthians
Matthew Paul
Crooked Spire Press
ISBN 978-1-0684229-1-1
80pp £11.00
The Last Corinthians is a wonderful collection, varied in subject and poetic form and full of gentle wit. I was unfamiliar with the term ‘The Last Corinthians’ but learned that it refers to amateur sportsmen and women who play for the love of the game, rather than for money. The phrase can also mean people who have ‘unwavering integrity and are principled’. The poem that gives the collection its title doesn’t appear until the last but one page in the book. It is a nostalgic listing of famous players from the past and manages to pack in a lot of information while retaining rhythm and shape in carefully crafted tercets. In fact, many of the poems in this book contain lists of names of places, food or people, which could have been obtrusive but in Matthew Paul’s hands are a delight to read and often evocative of a particular memory.
The book is divided into three sections. Part 1, Heydays, reveals Paul’s skill in constructing poems in a variety of forms, often with subtle half-rhymes and rich imagery. There are two ekphrastic poems inspired by Edward Burra paintings and another “Edward Burra at the Gaiety, Hastings 1969”, which imagines Burra watching the film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang while suffering from a hangover. His friend and colleague, Bobby Helpmann, played the role of the Child Catcher. The poem makes uncomfortable reading with its references to war, antisemitism and child abduction, as suggested at the end of the poem in the phrase ‘the not-so-silver screen’.
Some of the people who appear in this first part of the book were unknown to me. I had never heard of the West Indian tipster Prince Monolulu. “Meeting the Prince” is a joyful narrative of a young woman who wins her bet on ‘Ruthless’ after getting the tip from the Prince on her way to work. We feel the urgency of Dora dashing out in her lunch hour:
to push through a fly-screen into side-street fug. Talk
stops – bar radio-pundits. She bowls up to the grille
to place her bets, and dallies back for shorthand tests.
The five quatrains in this poem have an unpredictable rhyme scheme and make use of assonance. The whole effect is filmic as we follow the story. The word ‘dallies’ cleverly evokes a past era and reminded me of the music hall song ‘My old man’ with the line ‘Don’t dilly dally on the way’.
“The Ballad of Mike Yarwood” demonstrates that being a celebrity can be short-lived and stressful. The ballad is written in rhyming tercets which bounce along satisfyingly, showing Paul’s skill in using rhyme and rhythm. Even if you haven’t seen Mike Yarwood ‘s impressions of comedians and politicians, you can appreciate the celebratory tone of the poem which opens with the line ‘The King of Impersonation’. As the narrative progresses, it is tragic to learn about Yarwood’s descent into alcoholism and obscurity. Despite his confidence on the stage and on TV in the 1970’s, he was an insecure and shy man who did not cope well with fame.
The next two sections in the collection are largely chronological. Part 2 is titled Black Forest Gateau and contains poems that take us from the narrator’s childhood through to adolescence and early adulthood. The poems are emotive without sentimentality. Food and music are poignant indicators of the past. In “Spent Matches”:
Teatime doesn’t wait for Dad: Hovis, Primula,
Shippam’s fish paste, allotment tomatoes, cress;
mini rolls, Penguins, cremated fruitcake;
These are some of the delights offered to the maternal grandparents when they are ferried over by their daughter to visit on ‘the second Thursday of every other month.’ Dad only appears at the end of the day after “Top of the Flops”, to take them home.
More food from the 1970’s appears in the poem “Entertaining”. The ‘mushroom vol-au-vents, / a cheese and pineapple hedgehog, and – yes! – Her Black Forest gateau,’ reveals what was considered the heights of sophisticated dining at the time. The poem is an affectionate and ironic snapshot dating from the narrator’s adolescence.
Another poem from the same era is “Double Chemistry”:
The hardest lads of 5N3 hold a smoke-ring competition
at the back of the lab, toking away on Benson
and Hedges sparked off the Bunsen
burners; while the rest, as always, toast squidgy pink
marshmallows.
The chemistry teacher Mrs Schwenk is clearly out of her depth and Mr Claggett, Head of Year, faces ridicule from the boys who refuse to own up to various misdemeanours. They just laugh in his face, leading to him calling them ‘a rabble of unemployable shits’. Again, the half-rhymes at the end of the lines add to the rhythm and humour of this poem.
Going to the dentist or following a fire evacuation procedure may seem unusual subjects but Paul is expert in transforming everyday life into humorous and engaging poems. There are also affectionate portraits of people from the past. In the poem “Whitehall (i.m. Karen Donovan)” we hear about a previous girlfriend of the narrator and in “Blindside Flanker” we meet a larger-than-life Australian man who has had several unusual encounters with animals.
Last time he rang, he’d been rugby-tackling a bunch
of jackass penguins for his sister’s doctoral research,
clasping those tarantula hands around braying bills,
inducing regurgitation into customised plastic pails –
Part 3 of the book is called Passing Places, a term that conveys both time and people passing. The narrator mentions his partner Lyn, a 17 year-old daughter and his declining parents. “On Muybridge Ward” is a tender and sad poem about the father lying on the ward with his eyes shut and being shaved by the auxiliary nurse Millie. He doesn’t seem to respond during the process but the poem ends:
Millie begins to towel-pat
his mustard-yellow cheeks. Dad resists: ‘Clear off!
Gertcha!’ Millie and I can’t help but laugh.
‘Well now, Michael, you look gorgeous!’ she cries.
For the briefest time, Dad opens both eyes.
Food and place feature with detailed observation in this part of the collection. In “Green Tomato Chutney” and “The Sneaton Medlar” you can almost taste the foods because of the delectable vocabulary used to describe them. And “Bleasdale” has these lovely lines:
…a modish display of tumbling
lapwings – lissom, harmonised suffragette
sashes – over ramsoms, becks and sheep.
Like all good writing, these poems give more when read and re-read because of their rich imagery, clever rhyming schemes and their shapes on the page. They are also highly original. I recommend The Last Corinthians with no hesitation and hope others will enjoy it as much as I have.