Magma 90 — Creating the Cover
Magma Editors meet Mike Ferguson Magma: This might be the first time Magma has had a poem on the cover! Can you tell us how did you get the idea for this piece on the theme of Grassroots? What’s your…
Magma 79: Launches, Craft Talks and Other Events
Magma Poetry #79 on Dwelling was partly funded by the Arts Council of England’s COVID Culture Recovery Fund and the Ohio State University Global Arts + Humanities discovery themes. Its editors are Zoë Brigley, Kristian Evans and Rob A. Mackenzie…
Francisco Aragón responds to Carmen Giménez Smith
From Magma 76, Resistancia In each issue, we ask a contemporary poet for a poem which draws inspiration from another poet’s work. In this issue, Francisco Aragón responds to Carmen Giménez Smith…
Twenty Years of Reviewing for Magma
Twenty years ago I wrote my first review for Magma, in the autumn 1999 issue (Magma 15, for those counting). Little was I to know that two decades on I would still be reviewing for what has become something of…
Why reading Elizabeth Bishop is like going to the cinema
From Magma 71, The Film Issue The lens Whether you’ve spent a little or a long time with Elizabeth Bishop’s poetry – chances are that what surfaces when you call it to mind, are some of the things you’ve…
A LEAP OF FAITH: WHAT TO EXPECT FROM SOUTH BANK POETRY’S WORKSHOPS
I started running South Bank Poetry workshops in 2015, it all started with one workshop at the Poetry Café, which went really well and those who attended wanted to come back for another one, so I ran more and more…
Requested: Robert Montgomery picks So Many Lives by John Ashbery
So Many Lives Sometimes I get radiant drunk when I think of and/or look at you, Upstaged by our life, with me in it. And other mornings too Your care is like a city, with the uncomfortable parts Evasive, and…
On Post-Editing the Deaf Issue, Magma 69
Having nearly emerged from the other side of co-editing the Deaf Issue, Magma 69, I would like to share a few thoughts on how it works at Magma and our plans. First, it is an immense privilege to edit an…
Working Titles
Kathryn Simmonds on naming your poem. Finding the right title for a poem can feel like trying to solve a particularly painful crossword clue, but once you’ve hit on the solution, sometimes after dozens of false starts, the answer seems…
Requested: Hannah Pool chooses Jackie Kay’s The Adoption Papers
I say to the man at the desk I’d like to see my original birth certificate Do you have any idea what your name was? Close, close he laughs. Well what was it? So slow as torture he discloses bit…
Supported by Arts Council England