Magma Poetry

Magma Poetry is on the road again, this time taking a trip to the lovely Ledbury Poetry Festival.

We’re proud to be sponsoring a reading by Ros Barber and Glyn Maxwell. Glyn recently featured in Magma in our ‘Presiding Spirits’ feature and was interviewed about the beautiful  and resonant poem we commissioned from him - a homage to one of his poetry heroes, Thomas Hardy.

The event is on Friday 10th July at 2.30pm. Roberta James, Laurie Smith and Allison McVety, all members of the Magma team, will be there, so do stop by the sales table and say hello.

I invited each of the four publishers who were shortlisted for the Michael Marks Award to answer a few questions. Peter Hughes from Oystercatcher Press (winner of the award) was first to respond. Now Helena Nelson from HappenStance shares her thoughts:

I was pleased to see the creation in 2009 of the Michael Marks Awards, with generous £5000 prizes for an often overlooked area of poetry publishing – the pamphlet. The award ceremony was held on 24 June 2009. Congratulations to Elizabeth Burns, winner of the Best Individual Pamphlet award for The Shortest Days and to Oystercatcher Press for winning the Best Pamphlet Publisher category.

Don’t miss the launch reading for Magma 44, edited by Tim Kindberg and Rosie Shepperd, on Monday 22 June at The Troubadour, Earl’s Court, London.