http://www.incwriters.co.uk/?p=2983
I have been invited to guest blog on Incwriters for a fortnight. So if you want to read more, follow the link above. Today I have written about Matt Simpson, as I want to spread the word about this wonderful poet whom I was lucky enough to call my friend.
Tonight I am going to First Thursday at Lingham’s bookshop in Heswall, on The Wirral. They are having a tribute evening to him and I have been invited to read one of my poems about him. I have two publications coming out this year in which the poems I wrote in the aftermath of his death are to appear. 
Matt quoted Ecclesiates: ‘A faithful friend is the medicine of life’ in a birthday card he made for me. That is how I will remember him. He was a tease, a mischief, stubborn and nicknamed ‘Grumpy’ by his grandchildren, but that was tempered by the warm, witty, vulnerable person we knew was there.
I am grateful to Incwriters for giving me the chance to spread the word about Matt’s work. If you have not read anything by him I urge you to do so. You will not be disappointed.
Angela Topping 
Matt Simpson was clearly an inspirational teacher and wonderful friend as well as a remarkable poet. Your Incwriters post sent me searching anthologies and I soon found him – four poems recalling his childhood in the Liverpool docklands; family-centred poems so vivid and truthful they latch in the mind immediately. And I love the film of your poem ‘Keeping Faith’; Matt was lucky to have such a friend as you.
I shall seek out more of his work and your writings about him.
Paul