[SUBMISSIONS NOW CLOSED] Call for Submission: Magma 71 — The Film Issue

Closing date: 31st January, 2018

The submissions window for ‘Film’ is open from October 1st 2017 until January 31st 2018.

We welcome poems that have not been previously published, either in print or online. Poems may be sent via Submittable, or by post if you live in the UK. Postal submissions are not acknowledged until a decision is made.

“My poetry seems to be something I make up as I go along. Certain movies strike me that way — going in and out of one’s dreams.” From “John Ashbery goes to the movies”

Whether it’s a film you always go back to, a director you follow, a cinema that holds a particular story for you, or a poem that simply reads like a short film, Magma 71 is set out to celebrate the poetry of cinema.

Take us with you to the movies. Send us your takes on Neorealism and Nouvelle Vague, Hollywood Golden Age or the cinema of today. Or perhaps you’d like to create your own film script, presented to us in the form of a poem. Send us your films noirs, your indies and your blockbusters. In short, make us believe in films that don’t exist and send us to watch the films that do. Show us the ways poetry and film are connected and explore with us whether it is even possible for contemporary poets to write without the cinema screen at the back of their mind.

We are also calling for submissions of film-poems. We are particularly interested in collaborative work between poets and filmmakers. The poems, as always, should not have been previously published, either in print or online. The chosen film-poems will be screened at Magma events, showcased on the Magma website, and the poem texts published in the magazine. We are interested in collaborations that challenge and converse with each other’s form rather than simply echo it. In other words, if there’s a moon in the poem, we probably don’t need to see it represented as a moon in the film.

Look out for regular updates during the reading/viewing period on the Magma website where we’ll be posting examples of recent film poems we’ve loved and discussing the boundaries between film poems and music video clips, from Beyoncé’s 2016 visual album Lemonade all the way back to Bob Dylan’s 1965 Subterranean Homesick Blues.

We look forward to going to the cinema with you!

Cheryl Moskowitz and Stav Poleg, Editors, Magma 71

Magma Poetry in Collaboration with the University of Edinburgh and the Festival of Creative Learning

We are thrilled to announce our first collaboration for Magma 71.

More details here