I’m particularly excited to welcome Matthew M.C. Smith to drop in today to talk about a poem from his stunning collection, TheKeeper of Aeons, as I have long been an admirer of his poetry.

My poem Paviland: Ice and Fire was published by The Lonely Crowd in 2022. I was really pleased to be included in their 5-year edition as I feel that this press has a record of publishing excellent writing, under the editorship of John Lavin.

The poem takes the reader on a dizzying, intense, time-travelling journey to a cave on the Gower peninsula where a palaeolithic hunter is buried – popularly known as the ‘Red Lady’ of Paviland – but was, in fact, a male, Ice Age hunter. There’s an aspect of shamanism and ancient ritual in this poem set 34,000 years ago at a primitive, solemn scene of burial, where a man was buried…