Magma Poetry

Here’s your opportunity to give us some feedback about Magma 42 – what you liked and what you think could be improved. And of course it’s our opportunity to hear from you.

Did you enjoy the selection of poems? Did it introduce you to some new voices you didn’t know, as well as offering you some more familiar ones?

You may have noticed that Magma has got bigger, more pages giving you even more than before and the design has been refreshed. Did you like the fresh look?

Did you think the groupings of the poems into different headings worked well?

What did you feel about the mix and variety of the prose?

Do you think there’s anything missing? Are there any features you’d like to see in future issues?

Launches of Magma Poetry always have the feeling of An Occasion. The launch of Magma 42 perhaps even more than usual; we had planned it as a celebration of the newly refreshed Magma – bigger, better and with an enhanced design.

Many of the poets featured in the issue were there to read their poems, and one of the pleasures of the evening was to hear the poems read in the order in which they appear in the magazine, giving a sense of the connections and juxtapositions. From my point of view, it was fascinating to have sight of some of the poets whose work we chose, to put faces and voices to the words.

It must have been the wine at the Magma Christmas bash that made me think it might be a good idea to offer myself up to Laurie Smith, one of the founders of the magazine, as assistant editor on Magma 42. He has a wealth of editing experience under his belt. Not just that – as I was to discover, he is immensely knowledgeable, unbelievably painstaking and very, very patient. With me, I mean. Which was just as well, considering I had no idea what I was letting myself in for.

In my innocence, I assumed that the bulk of the work would be in reading the several thousand poems that are submitted for each issue, selecting the strongest ones, then trying to create a coherent whole out of them. Laurie and I had several intense email debates about certain poems; each of us had the experience of changing our minds about poems after slugging it out for a few virtual rounds. Which makes you realise how subjective the whole business can be.

I’m delighted to announce that I will be editing Magma 44 with Rosie Shepperd as assistant editor. We are very excited about putting together next summer’s edition from your poetry contributions and a fresh Magma mix of articles. We are already taking submissions and look forward to reading many more. Magma 44 will be published in July 2009.

The theme for Magma 44 will be the vertical dimension: roots and aspirations.

Well, plenty! Magma 42, inspired by Kafka’s assertion that ‘Words are ice-axes for the frozen sea within’ is crammed with exciting, sometimes edgy, innovative poems that are not afraid to engage with strong feelings.

Matthew Sweeney responds to the work of Austrian poet George Trakl with a new poem of his own, and Blake Morrison writes lucidly and entertainingly about Larkin’s ‘Poetry of Departures’. Prose includes an article on the poetic imagination, and an exploration of the world of Poetry in Education. We have a special selection of unpublished poems by the winners of the 2008 Eric Gregory awards for poets under thirty and are proud to publish new poems by celebrated poets Gillian Clarke and Vicki Feaver.