Matthew Dolezal

Visit Matthew Dolezal on
table number 47
at the summer
Oxford Indie Book Fair
on 13-July 2025

See home page for details, map and more.

Poetry is something that has always been within me and growing up I guess it was always around in the background. So, I suppose I was subliminally absorbing words and verse. And then letting my imagination feed my creativity. Since I could write I started creating stories and poems. I never really thought I that they would be released out into the wider world let alone be published. When I was in my teens, I wanted to write folk songs and sing them at open mics. So, I would go down with my guitar to sing these songs I created, but I wasn’t confident enough to sing them, but I did perform them as poems and people liked them.

I never really took my writing seriously until quite recently, when I started writing again and I was encouraged by family and friends that I should consider getting them published.

Many things can inspire me, and I write about love, nature, loss and community, and my own personal sense of escapism into nature. Often When I am gardening something might trigger, it could a robin or a bumblebee and I watch and observe their behaviour and create characters out of them. In my book “The Birds were the Only Ones Singing” the reader is asked to question where they find themselves most at peace. The book also reveals how nature can be a metaphor for human greed and deception. I am also inspired by events and conversations, which can seed the idea for a poem. The idea will be rattling around my head, sometimes for months and I will write down everything related I can think of, till a story emerges and then I begin to transpose this into verse, some come quicker than others. Some I can write in Half an hour while others may take days. But they often write themselves in someways as I never know what the final outcome will be!

All the poems explore different themes, some are fun and written with humour, while others are more serious.

I am also back performing again, and I will be appearing at the Leamington Unity & Peace festival later this month on Friday 20th June!