1. Critical Books
Ruth Bidgood, 'Writers of Wales' (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2012)
  • 'Jarvis's superbly attentive readings should lead to a broader appreciation of Ruth Bidgood's distinctive contribution to Anglophone poetry.' – Dr Daniel G. Williams (Swansea University)
  • 'Jarvis draws on various strands in modern critical thinking, especially ecocriciticsm, but his study is refreshingly free from theory and jargon of the kind that makes most academic criticism unreadable. Instead, Ruth Bidgood pays close attention to the words on the page and, as a result, is an excellent introduction to the poet's work.' – John Barnie (New Welsh Review, Winter 2012)
  • 'a thorough, detailed and scholarly exploration and evaluation of Ruth Bidgood’s poetry' – Caroline Clark (www.gwales.com)
  • 'this careful, almost loving, and certainly erudite meditation on what one poet has done for a part of Wales and what that Wales has done for her' – Angela Graham (The Welsh Agenda, Spring 2013)
Welsh Environments in Contemporary Poetry (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2008) 
  • 'pioneering criticism' – Professor Jeremy Hooker (Green Letters, 10)
  • 'evident critical intelligence' – Dr Greg Garrard (TLS, 6 March 2009)
  • 'Matthew Jarvis's excellent Welsh Environments in Contemporary Poetry' – Dr Katie Gramich (New Welsh Review, Spring 2009)
  • 'finely tuned sensitivities', 'theoretical sophistication' – Professor Terry Gifford (ISLE, Autumn 2009)
Welsh Environments in Contemporary Poetry

2. Poetry

The Mallarmé Poems (Blaenau Ffestiniog: Cinnamon, 2020)

3. Edited Volumes

Editor, A Seeking Mind: Poetry & Prose for Ruth Bidgood (Blaenau Ffestiniog: Cinnamon); forthcoming
Editor, Wired to the Dynamo: Poetry & Prose in Honour of John Barnie (Blaenau Ffestiniog: Cinnamon, 2018)
Editor, Devolutionary Readings: English-Language Poetry and Contemporary Wales (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2017)
Co-editor, with Neal Alexander, International Journal of Welsh Writing in English, Vol. 5 (2018): rolling Open Access publication
Co-editor, with Neal Alexander, International Journal of Welsh Writing in English, Vol. 4 (2017)
Co-editor, with Neal Alexander, International Journal of Welsh Writing in English, Vol. 3 (2015)
Co-editor, with Louise Squire, 'Literature and Sustainability' special issue, Green Letters: Studies in Ecocriticism, 19.1 (February 2015)
Co-editor, with Kirsti Bohata, 'Literary Topographies: Mapping Welsh writing in English' special issue, International Journal of Welsh Writing in English, Vol. 2 (2014)
Co-editor, with Patrick McGuinness, New Welsh Review, 74 (Winter 2006): 'Environment and Identity' 

4. Other Editing

  • Guest Reviews Editor, Planet: The Welsh Internationalist, 236 (2019)
  • Guest Reviews Editor, Planet: The Welsh Internationalist, 230 (2018)
  • Reviews Editor, International Journal of Welsh Writing in English, Vol. 2 (2014)
  • Reviews Editor, International Journal of Welsh Writing in English, Vol. 1 (2013)

5. Grey Literature

  • ​Headline Responses to Current AoLE Drafts in the Context of the Welsh Dimension and International Perspective (WDIP), a report commissioned by the Learned Society of Wales for the Curriculum, Assessment and Pedagogy Division of the Education Department of Welsh Government (November 2018)
  • AoLE Implementation of the ‘Welsh Dimension and International Perspective’, a report commissioned by the Learned Society of Wales for the Curriculum, Assessment and Pedagogy Division of the Education Department of Welsh Government (August 2018)
  • Uncovering Wales Studies: A Report on REF2014 Impact Case Studies from Welsh HEIs, for the Learned Society of Wales (2017)

​6. Scholarly Pamphlet

Becoming 'Prifardd of English-speaking Wales': The Reception of R. S. Thomas in the 1960s and Early 1970s
Becoming 'Prifardd of English-speaking Wales': The Reception of R. S. Thomas in the 1960s and Early 1970s (Lampeter: Trivium, 2009)

7. Articles, Essays, and Chapters in Books

  • 'In and out of the nation: Poetry Wales in the 1960s and 1970s’, in Kate McLoughlin, ed., Flower/Power: British Literature in Transition, Volume 2, 1960-1980 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 232-46
  • 'Devolutionary Complexities: Reading Three New Poets', in Matthew Jarvis, ed., Devolutionary Readings: English-Language Poetry and Contemporary Wales (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2017), 89-114
  • 'Afterword', in Ruth Bidgood, Black Mountains/Land-Music (Blaenau Ffestiniog: Cinnamon, 2016), 47-53
  • 'Hard Hats in Heather: Barry MacSweeney's North-East', in Paul Batchelor, ed., Reading Barry MacSweeney (Newcastle upon Tyne: Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts; Tarset, Northumberland: Bloodaxe, 2013), 47-62
  • 'Place under Pressure: Reading John Tripp’s Wales’' in Neal Alexander and David Cooper, eds, Poetry & Geography: Space and Place in Post-War Poetry (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2013), 49-60
  • 'In/Human Place: The Poetry of John Barnie', in Zoë Skoulding and Ian Davidson, eds, Placing Poetry (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2013), 149-68
  • 'Ruth Bidgood: An Appreciation', Poetry Wales, 48.1 (Summer 2012), 28-34. Reproduced online as the Poetry Daily Prose Feature, Poetry Daily, 6 August 2012. Also reprinted, with slight alterations and additional bibliographic material, as 'Ruth Bidgood: A Poet in the Heart of Wales', American, British and Canadian Studies, 18 (June 2012), 33-44.
  • 'Iago Prytherch's Mangels: Agricultural Contexts for R. S. Thomas's "A Peasant"', Almanac: Yearbook of Welsh Writing in English, 15 (2010-2011), 70-83
  • 'On Love', New Welsh Review, 91 (Spring 2011), 15-25
  • 'In and Beyond the City: The Places of Dannie Abse's Ash on a Young Man’s Sleeve', in Katie Gramich, ed., Mapping the Territory: Critical Approaches to Welsh Fiction in English (Cardigan: Parthian, 2010), 163-84
  • 'Textual Variants in the Poetry of Leslie Norris', Literature and Belief, 29 and 30.1 (2009 and 2010), 141-51
  • 'Visual Poetics in Wales: A Note on Previous Engagements', Poetry Wales, 45.4 (Spring 2010), 15-21
  • 'Repositioning Wales: Poetry after the Second Flowering', in Daniel Williams, ed., Slanderous Tongues: Essays on Welsh Poetry in English 1970-2005 (Bridgend: Seren, 2010), 21–59
  • 'Saving the Earth: Wendy Mulford’s Salthouse', ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, 16.3 (Summer 2009), 469–86
  • 'Divergent Paths: Poetic Divisions in the 1990s', Poetry Wales, 45.1 (Summer 2009), 29-36
  • 'International Elements in Early Poetry Wales: A Response to Malcolm Ballin', Almanac: Yearbook of Welsh Writing in English, 13 (2008-2009), 191-201
  • 'Energies of Commitment: Poetry and Politics in the 1980s', Poetry Wales, 44.4 (Spring 2009), 11-16
  • 'A Poetry of Diversification: New Voices of the 1970s', Poetry Wales, 44.3 (January 2009), 43-8
  • 'Voices of Renewal: Anglophone Welsh Poetry in the 1960s', Poetry Wales, 44.2 (Autumn 2008), 22-7
  • 'An Absent Art? "Alternative" Poetry since the Second Flowering', Poetry Wales, 44.1 (Summer 2008), 8-14
  • 'Barry MacSweeney's Moorland Romance', in Fiona Becket and Terry Gifford, eds, Culture, Creativity and Environment: New Environmentalist Criticism (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007), 181-96
  • 'Christine Evans's Bardsey: Creating Sacred Space', Welsh Writing in English: A Yearbook of Critical Essays, 11 (2006-2007), 188-209
  • 'Leslie Norris, In and Out of Place', Poetry Wales, 42.2 (Autumn 2006), 35-9
  • 'The Politics of Place in the Poetry of Ian Davidson', Welsh Writing in English: A Yearbook of Critical Essays, 10 (2005), 97-112
  • 'Towards a Poetics of Pleasure', English Studies, 84.3 (June 2003), 239-49
  • 'Presenting the Past: Barry MacSweeney's Cultural Memory', Pretexts, 11.2 (2002), 147-57
  • ​'Reading Redgrove: Two Modes of Transaction', The Swansea Review, 18 ([1999]), 88-103

8. Other Scholarly Material

Matthew Jarvis


Writer, Critic, Poet

Stay in touch