‘These kinds of biog notes must help readers appeciate the poem which, in the end, is the only point of them.’

The notes have categorically nothing to do with the poem. I think readers enjoy them because they ground the poem within the context of a specific kind of communication, they re-establish the idea that the poem is part of a tradition of out-reach, idea sharing and enquiry. Knowing that a person exists behind the poem makes us aware that we involved in a transaction, but that doesn’t mean the poem has anything to do with the life of the person who wrote it.

I find it vaguely patronising to have it suggested that as a reader I am unable to separate the poem and the poet and that somehow when presented with a biography I am unable to resist suddenly constructing contrary, reductive conclusions. As Auden wrote: ‘Knowledge of a reader’s life sheds no significant light on their work’ so it’s completely harmless to have biographies prceisely because they have nothing to do with the poems.

But quite a lot of poets in Magma haven’t published yet and write about themselves. These can be the most illuminating especially when, as often with upcoming poets, they don’t say anything about themselves when sending in their poems. Our editor chooses the poem on its qualities and then is surprised and delighted to find that the poet is still at school, or has lived all their life in Singapore, or (as with the second poem in Magma 45, published mid-November) “X works in banking and this is her first published poem” – by no means the first time we’ve had this.

These kinds of biog notes must help readers appeciate the poem which, in the end, is the only point of them. But whatever upcoming poets say about themselves,we always try to focus on the most illuminating point.

The cleverest biog note we’ve received was from A Mudopneys. On being asked for a biog note, the reply was “A Mudopneys is a pseudonym”. It took us a bit of time to realise Mudopneys is an anagram of pseudonym. Mudopneys was the email address. Further emails acquired no further information. We didn’t publish the poem. One can be too clever.

From Contributors

P.D Crick was a member of the Dorking Renaissance
of the late 1950s, admired by James Croft.
From the early1960s he participated in a bi-weekly
poetry group with Stone Scryton and Beldon Lang,
during which time he wrote two-liner poems,
both printed in their entirety last year
in Jhair Tunkinstan’s anthology The Sweltered
Renaissance. A slim volume of his collected words,
The Economy of Mouth 1963-2005,
edited by Gordon Blair, is forthcoming, and crucial.

Dinsdale Potts has studied the art of writing
(particularly modern verse) since the age of seven,
now eighty-two he works freelance and believes,
Poetry remains even after the wallet is lost.
‘Please be Kind’ is his first published poem.

Jane Doe, published in many magazines, anthologies
and journals including Angels Exhumed,
Blighty Spirit, and The Interpreter’s Tomb,
is currently revising her first collection,
All I Remembered, Crossing the Styx.

Gaylord Remsey describes himself as a connoisseur
of words, specialising in those beginning with F.
His modest autobiography Fumble Fly
contains much of his early experimental work.

Donny Little has written volumes
too numerable to mention. He writes every night
in his garden shed. During the day he works
as a lift operator in a very tall building.

Crick, Potts, Doe, Remsey, and Little
are all members of The Vole Molly Poets:
a society dedicated to exposing poetry
in public places. Several have been arrested.

Bur “some keen poetry readers I know don’t use computers at all” really staggers me. I couldn’t be more gobsmacked if you’d said they had antennae and came from the planet Zog! Maybe that shows I spend too much time online…

I have a confession to make. When I’m asked for a biography, I mentally substitute ‘bibliography’ and give brief details of my latest collection, and my website, with a note that it will have new poems available.

Of course all this can be Googled, but we don’t all have constant access to a computer, and some keen poetry readers I know don’t use computers at all.

If I really like a poem in a magazine by an author previously unknown to me, I will jot down the name of any collection in their biography to add to my next batch of purchases. It’s the equivalent of the impulse buy in the bookshop – which I believe accounts for a high proportion of sales.

Briefly, on footnotes, I entirely agree that they are very illuminating. I look for them more and more as a reader, and I regret not having used them enough when I first began publishing poetry.

I made the original comment and I think tucking brief ‘poems in magazines’ and/or ‘books published by’ biographies are useful because they give readers chance to go and read more by a poet whose work they were impressed with. Not to mention giving poets the opportunity to do a little self-promotion as poetry hardly dominates broadsheet literary reviews and, generally, poetry is not news.

If a poet has written about Iraq then it’s fair enough to mention they were actually stationed in Iraq but the poem should still work on its own merit without reliance on the fact the writer was actually there. I am definitely not in favour of biographies that encourage poets to give reams of background to authenticate their poems. As the above article says, authenticity should come from the poem, not the poet.