The call for poems on the theme of ‘Ownership’ summoned work from far and wide and opened the door to a great range of interpretations – from the expected, on homes and homelands or lack of them, through dogs, languages and language, pickpockets, non-fungible tokens, marriage, lederhosen, all the way to peahens and runaway breasts. Rich pickings for us as editors, both in content and form. Enough to cram into several cupboards, but we only had the elegantly compact vitrine of Magma so had to be ruthless in letting go. We would like to thank everybody who submitted poems and gave us so much to reflect on and discuss.

In addition to poems, we commissioned contributions on what we think are some key elements of ownership in the world of poetry. We’re delighted that two eminent poetry publishers, Neil Astley of Bloodaxe and Carcanet’s Michael Schmidt, found time to discuss the role of editors, and editorship versus authorship versus ownership, from the making of a collection to the management of a legacy. Neil’s view is that “The editor is the midwife not the parent, although the health of the offspring can be enhanced by the right kind of care taken in the delivery”.

In Inspired, Lorraine Mariner’s response to a poem by the late Fleur Adcock, her friend, fellow poet and librarian, highlights the backwards and forwards nature of ownership through influence upon and love of. Lorraine has chosen to respond to a poem about ancestry, what is passed down, another interest she shares with Fleur: “Fleur’s research and discoveries are also something that she passes on to her sons and grandchildren and great grandchildren; the poems are an inheritance for future generations, so another type of ownership.”

AI looms large in everyone’s thoughts as we learn how our work is being scraped in order to train the beast to replace us. Dan Power, poet and editor of the AI Literary Review, offers an ultimately optimistic view on how, as writers and readers, we can negotiate the transition between pre- and post-AI worlds. As he writes, “[t]his is not an anti-AI hit-piece, and neither is it a defence of low effort, AI-powered plagiarism. Instead, it’s an attempt to find a sturdy middle ground on which human poetry can build its defences”.

That older beast, Colonialism, was a theme that recurred among the submissions, and activist and poet Sascha A. Akhtar’s essay on the often misunderstood, even misappropriated, ghazal form is an impassioned plea for a deeper, more culturally-sensitive appreciation of the form: “…it is the practitioner’s job to wonder if we are actually constructing a living, breathing contemporary ghazal that speaks of decolonial and, indeed, anti-colonial praxis or some hollow semblance – a ghost ghazal devoid of its ancestral torque – no blood, no bones, no roots”.

In putting together this selection over recent months, let us own up to the fact that we looked for poems that are well-made and take an original stance, but also, to borrow from Marie Kondo – doyenne of clearing out – that “spark joy”. To a degree, how we experience joy will always be affected by individual taste, but delight in language, be it flamboyantly daft or quietly, heart-openingly satisfying, is a unifying element, a delight which we hope you will share. Here you are – it’s yours. This issue belongs to you now.

Danne Jobin, Kathy Pimlott and Paul Stephenson

 

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From Magma 92, Ownership

 

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