Tweetspeak Poetry

  • Home
  • FREE prompts
  • Earth Song
  • Every Day Poems—Subscribe! ✨
  • Teaching Tools
  • Books, Etc.
  • Patron Love

Poets and Poems: Matt Duggan and “One Million Tiny Cuts”

By Glynn Young 4 Comments

British poet Matt Duggan uses language and images that are as vivid as they are often jarring. His poems force a focus on the contradictions and non sequiturs of life and culture, fueled sometimes by a cold, discerning eye and sometimes by political anger (Duggan’s the co-editor of the political poetry magazine The Angry Manifesto). Whether he’s writing about dystopia or the Greek myth of Orpheus, he employs sharp, attention-getting images and metaphors.

And so it is with his new collection, One Million Tiny Cuts.

It’s a small collection, comprising only 20 poems. And yet its length is forgotten when one considers the power of the poems. These poems possess an energy that surprises but never disappoints.

He writes of his affinity for Europe, the reality of a world dominated by tweets and emojis, the safety of empty rooms, life in the echo chamber, the need for isolation in a world of constant spotlights, and drinking with Hemingway (he finds a oneness with the author after his “fourteenth sip of absinthe”). This is once again dystopia, the theme of his last collection, Dystopia 38.10.

Consider the almost shocking imagery Duggan uses in the title poem.

One Million Tiny Cuts

One Million Tiny Cuts Matt DugganHow did you cope with the first tiny cut?
the milk that drained from the soul.
Did that cut lay inscribed on your back?
how did the mechanism work for you.

Some never reveal their first tiny cut
thin tissue that departed into liquid,
shrugged as a learning curve of emotions
while others build a solid resistance;

killing sorrow before it spreads into their blood
age will always teach us the value
in the cracks that will reappear,

as they do not see the one million tiny cuts
embellished on your back which strengthens resolve,
in a battlefield where you feed on another tiny cut.

Matt Duggan

Matt Duggan

Duggan was born in Bristol, England, in 1971 and lives there today. His poems have appeared in numerous online and print journals, including Indiana Voice Journal and Ink Sweat and Tears. He started and still hosts a spoken word evening at the Hydra Bookshop in Bristol. Dystopia 38.10 won the 2015 Erbacce prize for poetry.

One Million Tiny Cuts is not for the fainthearted. It’s a bold collection, an angry collection, a kind of fist raised at society. Like all fists, it’s also a kind of warning.

Related:

Poets and Poems: Matt Duggan and “Dystopia 38.10”

Matthew Duggan’s “Underworld: The Modern Orpheus”

Browse more book reviews

Photo by Jenny Downing, Creative Commons, via Flickr. Post by Glynn Young, author of the novels Dancing Priest, A Light Shining, and the newly published Dancing King, and Poetry at Work.

__________________________

How to Read a Poem by Tania Runyan How to Read a Poem uses images like the mouse, the hive, the switch (from the Billy Collins poem)-to guide readers into new ways of understanding poems. Anthology included.

“I require all our incoming poetry students-in the MFA I direct-to buy and read this book.”

-Jeanetta Calhoun Mish

Buy How to Read a Poem Now!

  • Author
  • Recent Posts
Glynn Young
Glynn Young
Editor and Twitter-Party-Cool-Poem-Weaver at Tweetspeak Poetry
Glynn Young lives in St. Louis where he retired as the team leader for Online Strategy & Communications for a Fortune 500 company. Glynn writes poetry, short stories and fiction, and he loves to bike. He is the author of the Civil War romance Brookhaven, as well as Poetry at Work and the Dancing Priest Series. Find Glynn at Faith, Fiction, Friends.
Glynn Young
Latest posts by Glynn Young (see all)
  • A History of Children’s Stories: “The Haunted Wood” by Sam Leith - May 20, 2025
  • World War II Had Its Poets, Too - May 15, 2025
  • Czeslaw Milosz, 1946-1953: “Poet in the New World” - May 13, 2025

Filed Under: article, book reviews, Books, Britain, Poems, poetry, poetry reviews, Poets

Try Every Day Poems...

Comments

  1. Laura Lynn Brown says

    February 6, 2018 at 6:07 pm

    I’m trying to remember my first tiny cut.

    Reply
    • Sandra Heska King says

      February 9, 2018 at 7:38 am

      I think I remember mine… but then I don’t know if even my memory has some cuts.

      Reply
  2. Sandra Heska King says

    February 9, 2018 at 7:39 am

    Mulling over that last line… “where you feed on another tiny cut.”

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Poets and Poems: Matt Duggan and “A Season in Another World” - says:
    November 27, 2018 at 9:32 am

    […] Poets and Poems: Matt Duggan and “One Million Tiny Cuts” […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Take How to Read a Poem

Get the Introduction, the Billy Collins poem, and Chapter 1

get the sample now

Welcome to Tweetspeak

New to Tweetspeak Poetry? Start here, in The Mischief Café. You're a regular? Check out our May Menu

Patron Love

❤️

Welcome a little patron love, when you help keep the world poetic.

The Graphic Novel

"Stunning, heartbreaking, and relevant illustrations"

Callie Feyen, teacher

read a summary of The Yellow Wallpaper

meet The Yellow Wallpaper characters

How to Write Poetry

Your Comments

  • Glynn on World War II Had Its Poets, Too
  • Sandra Fox Murphy on World War II Had Its Poets, Too
  • Glynn on Poets and Poems: Kelly Belmonte and “The Mother of All Words”
  • Bethany R. on Poets and Poems: Kelly Belmonte and “The Mother of All Words”

Featured In

We're happy to have been featured in...

The Huffington Post

The Paris Review

The New York Observer

Tumblr Book News

Stay in Touch With Us

Categories

Learn to Write Form Poems

How to Write an Acrostic

How to Write a Ballad

How to Write a Catalog Poem

How to Write a Ghazal

How to Write a Haiku

How to Write an Ode

How to Write a Pantoum

How to Write a Rondeau

How to Write a Sestina

How to Write a Sonnet

How to Write a Villanelle

5 FREE POETRY PROMPTS

Get 5 FREE inbox poetry prompts from the popular book How to Write a Poem

Shakespeare Resources

Poetry Classroom: Sonnet 18

Common Core Picture Poems: Sonnet 73

Sonnet 104 Annotated

Sonnet 116 Annotated

Character Analysis: Romeo and Juliet

Character Analysis: Was Hamlet Sane or Insane?

Why Does Hamlet Wait to Kill the King?

10 Fun Shakespeare Resources

About Shakespeare: Poet and Playwright

Top 10 Shakespeare Sonnets

See all 154 Shakespeare sonnets in our Shakespeare Library!

Explore Work From Black Poets

About Us

  • • A Blessing for Writers
  • • Our Story
  • • Meet Our Team
  • • Literary Citizenship
  • • Poet Laura
  • • Poetry for Life: The 5 Vital Approaches
  • • T. S. Poetry Press – All Books
  • • Contact Us

Write With Us

  • • 5 FREE Poetry Prompts-Inbox Delivery
  • • 30 Days to Richer Writing Workshop
  • • Poetry Prompts
  • • Submissions
  • • The Write to Poetry

Read With Us

  • • All Our Books
  • • Book Club
  • • Every Day Poems—Subscribe! ✨
  • • Literacy Extras
  • • Poems to Listen By: Audio Series
  • • Poet-a-Day
  • • Poets and Poems
  • • 50 States Projects
  • • Charlotte Perkins Gilman Poems Library
  • • Edgar Allan Poe Poems Arts & Experience Library
  • • William Blake Poems Arts & Experience Library
  • • William Shakespeare Sonnet Library

Celebrate With Us

  • • Poem on Your Pillow Day
  • • Poetic Earth Month
  • • Poet in a Cupcake Day
  • • Poetry at Work Day
  • • Random Acts of Poetry Day
  • • Take Your Poet to School Week
  • • Take Your Poet to Work Day

Gift Ideas

  • • Every Day Poems
  • • Our Shop
  • • Everybody Loves a Book!

Connect

  • • Donate
  • • Blog Buttons
  • • By Heart
  • • Shop for Tweetspeak Fun Stuff

Copyright © 2025 Tweetspeak Poetry · FAQ, Disclosure & Privacy Policy