Magma Poetry Competition

MAGMA POETRY COMPETITION 2024/25
Is now open for entries in both categories

The Judge’s Prize – poems of 11 to 50 lines
The Editors’ Prize – poems of up to 10 lines

Deadline: 31 January 2025 11.59pm GMT

Amy Acre
This year the Judge’s Prize for poems of 11 to 50 lines will be judged by AMY ACRE, whose debut collection, Mothersong (Bloomsbury, 2023) was shortlisted for the John Pollard Poetry Prize, and named a Book of the Year in the Telegraph and Financial Times. She runs Bad Betty Press.
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The Editors’ Prize is judged by a panel of Magma Editors and is for poems of up to 10 lines.

The prize money for both competitions is the same, so double your chances and try your luck at both!

  • First prize for the Judge’s and Editors’ Prize is £1000, second prize £300 and third prize £150.
  • The three prize-winning poems from each category will be published in Magma and there will also be five special mentions for each of the Judge’s Prize and Editors’ Prize categories.
  • All winning and commended poems will be published online on the Magma website.
  • Winning and commended poets will be invited to read their poems at a Magma Competition event in Spring 2025.

Last years’ winners are published in Magma 89 Performance Issue which you can purchase for £8.50 here.

All winning and commended poems are published in a free-to-download PDF. You can download the 2023/24 Competition winning and commended poems here: Magma Poetry Competition: Winning and Commended Poems.

The entry fees are £5 for the first poem, £4 for the second poem and £3.50 for the third and each subsequent poem.

Magma magazine subscribers benefit from reduced fees: £4 for the first poem, £3 for the second poem, and £2.50 for the third and each subsequent poem. You can subscribe to Magma from £22.00 via our Get Magma page.

HOW TO ENTER VIA SUBMITTABLE

  • You may enter as many poems as you like in each category, but you must submit to each category in separate documents.
  • Please upload the poems in one document for each category.
  • Please name the documents Judge’s Prize or Editors’ Prize as applicable and submit all of the poems for that category in the relevant document.
  • Do not include your name or any other identifying marks on the poems themselves.
  • Pay for all entries by picking the appropriate payment amount for total poems submitted. Subscriber and non-subscriber entries will be cross-referenced against our subscriber list and incorrectly paid entries may be disqualified. You can subscribe to Magma from £22.00 via our Get Magma page but you must do this before you enter.
  • The competition closes at 11.59pm GMT on 31 January 2025.

HOW TO ENTER BY POST

  • Please download and print the entry form here: Magma Poetry Competition 24_25 Postal Entry Form.
  • Post your poems with the completed entry form together with your payment to Magma Poetry Competition, 1 Winton Ave, London N11 2AS.
  • Payment must be made in sterling, by cheque or money order payable to “Magma Poetry”.
  • Each poem must be on a separate sheet. Poems longer than one page must show their title on the second page and the pages should be stapled together.
  • Do not include your name or any other identifying marks on the poems themselves.

COMPETITION RULES

  • No alterations can be made after receipt, nor fees refunded.
  • Poems must not have been previously published, self-published or accepted for publication in print or online, broadcast, or have won or been placed in another competition at any time.
  • The judge’s and editors’ decisions are final and no correspondence can be entered into.
  • No entrant may win more than one prize in each section.
  • Should the named judge be unable to proceed, we aim to substitute an alternative judge of equivalent standing as a poet.
  • Prizewinners will be notified individually in April 2025. The results will also be published on the Magma Poetry website after the prize-giving event.
  • Copyright of each entry remains with the author, but Magma Poetry has the right to first publication of the winning poems in print and/or online within six months of the competition deadline.
  • Entry implies acceptance of all the rules. Failure to comply with the rules will result in disqualification.

 

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PAST COMPETITIONS

Magma Poetry is delighted to announce the results of the 2023/24 Poetry Competition.

Raymond Antrobus and the panel of Magma Editors read over 3,500 poems. Congratulations to all the winning and commended poets and huge thanks to everyone entering the competition and for your continuing support of Magma.

Read the all winning and commended poems as well as the judging reports here:

Magma Poetry Competition: Winning and Commended Poems 

JUDGE’S PRIZE judged by Raymond Antrobus, for poems of 11-50 lines

  • FIRST PRIZE: For Palestine by Clara-Læïla Laudette
  • SECOND PRIZE: Toussaint L’Ouverture Replies to Wordsworth (March 1803) by Rommi Smith
  • THIRD PRIZE: Please Refrain From Speculating by Leyla Çolpan

COMMENDED:

  • Anthros by JA Lenton
  • Faint by Amelia Loulli
  • Brogue by Éadaoín Lynch
  • Watching by Linda McDonald
  • spell to dismantle the patriarchy by Lynnda Wardle

EDITORS’ PRIZE judged by Magma Editors, for poems of up to 10 lines

  • FIRST PRIZE: Scapa Flow by Catherine Spooner
  • SECOND PRIZE: Temporary Worker Visa by Anne Rouse
  • THIRD PRIZE: The Beauty Here Is Almost Unbearable by Millie Guille

COMMENDED:

  • Leaves, Their Whole Lives, Dangle by Sharon Black
  • My Unborn by Jo Cornwell
  • The Goat in Tehran by Hilary McDaniel
  • ache by Kayla Marie Troy
  • Transparency by John White

The three winning poems in each competition will be published in Magma 89, Performance and all winning and commended poems plus the judges’ reports online in a downloadable PDF, available when the issue launches this July.

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older posts:

Magma 2022/23 Poetry Competition

We are delighted to share the winning and commended poems from the Magma Poetry Competition 2020/21!

Click on the link below to read the poems:

Magma Poetry Competition 2022/23 Winning and Commended Poems

 

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Magma 2021/22 Poetry Competition

 

We are delighted to announce the winners of our 2021/22 Poetry Competition

Read the poems here: Magma Poetry Competitions 2021/22 — Winning and Commended Poems

Winner of the JUDGE’S PRIZE judged by Marvin Thompson:
Gwen Sayers with Archbishop Tutu’s funeral seen from thousands of miles away

 

Magma Poetry Competition 2020/21
Winning and Commended Poems

We are delighted to share the winning and commended poems from the Magma Poetry Competition 2020/21!

Click on the link below to read the poems:

Magma Poetry Competition 2020/21 Winning and Commended Poems

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Older posts

Magma Poetry Competition 2019/20
Winning and Commended Poems


We are delighted to share the winning and commended poems from the Magma Poetry Competition 2019/20!

Click on the link below to read the poems:

Magma Poetry Competition 2019/20 Winning and Commended Poems

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Magma Poetry Competition 2019/20 — Winners Announced

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Magma Poetry is excited to announce the winners and commended poets for its 2019/20 Poetry Competition for both the Judge’s Prize and the Editors’ Prize.

Many thanks to everyone who entered our annual Competition. Our Judge Caroline Bird and Magma Editors’ have been busy reading thousands of entries and we have had some very tough choices to make, but we now have our list. Congratulations to all the winners and commendeds and huge thanks to everyone for your continuing support of Magma.

JUDGE’S PRIZE

FIRST PRIZE: Mark Russell from Arrochar, Scotland with Hospitality

SECOND PRIZE: Victoria Richards from London with The mothers scream into the void

THIRD PRIZE: Rachael Matthews from New York with Ventriloquism

COMMENDED POEMS in no particular order:

Cameron Brady-Turner from Hemel Hempsted with Animal Crossing
Katie O’Pray from Bedford with Four Kisses
Nicola Daly from Chester with All I know About: J
Sally Baker from Mytholmroyd, W. Yorks with Fear of Arsenical Green
Liam Bates from Wednesbury, W. Midlands with The Protagonist

EDITORS’ PRIZE

FIRST PRIZE: James Pollock from Madison, WI, USA with Goose Neck Lamp

SECOND PRIZE: Paul Nemser from Cambridge, MA, USA with Morning After

THIRD PRIZE: Lydia Harris from Orkney with Muldro

COMMENDED POEMS in no particular order:

Maria Isakova-Bennett from Liverpool with The Alt at Lunt Meadows
John Maguire from Northumberland with The artist responds to criticism
Ian Chamberlain from Teignmouth, Devon with Certificate PG
Dean Gessie from Ontario, Canada with existential deer
Kathy Pimlott from Covent Garden with After the Fall

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The three winning poems in each competition will be published in Magma 77, Act Your Age, and the Commended poems on the Magma website when the issue launches.

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We are delighted to announce the winners of Magma Poetry Competition 2018/19

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Judge’s Prize

Judged by Andrew McMillan

First prize:  Inua Ellams – ‘Fuck/Boys’

Second prize: Rowena Warwick – ‘Stillborn’

Third prize: Ben Strak – ‘Hangover’


Commended (in no particular order)

Milena Williamson – ‘On our night out’

Catherine Norris – ‘Break the fast with peaches’

Inessa Rajah – ‘Checklist’

Regina Weinert – ‘Sheffield Fox’

*The fifth commended poem for the Judge’s Prize has since been withdrawn by the poet

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Editors’ Prize

Judged by a panel of Magma Editors

First prize: Derek Hughes – ‘A Strange Boulder’

Second prize: Kathy Pimlott – ‘Entertaining Sammy Davis Jnr in St Ives, 1962‘

Third prize: Katie Hale – ‘Lanterns’


Commended (in no particular order)

Ian Patterson – ‘Violin’

Robyn Steely – ‘Still Life with Cigarette’ 

Ken Babstock – ‘Infinite Jump Glitch’

Claire Gallivan – ‘The Text’ 

Barbara Hickson – ‘At Logan Botanic Garden’

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We are delighted to be hosting our Prize Winners’ Reading in the beautiful and atmospheric setting of Exmouth Market Centre in Islington, North London. Book your tickets here

What Makes You Buy A Poetry Collection?

Towards the end of the comments on our article on poetry reviews, a discussion arose on how people found poetry and decided to buy it, which seemed like an important topic in itself. As little as ten years ago, my poetry book buying habits were easy to pin down. I’d go to the new flagship Waterstones in Glasgow (it seemed a benign development at the time with the café, comfy chairs scattered around, and extensive stock) and peruse the poetry shelves. There were plenty of them. I hadn’t read much at the time and I remember finding an American edition of John Ashbery’sThe Tennis Court Oath, one of his most difficult collections, and feeling a mixture of shock, intrigue and impatience. The point is – Waterstones had a copy on the shelves. They stocked loads of poetry volumes. I leafed through books and found poetry, by trial and error, that appealed to me. A decade on, things have changed completely. I still stumble across some fantastic collections in the shrinking poetry sections of bookshops, but not often How do I find books these days? I decided to examine the last five poetry collections I’ve read (other than those I’ve been asked to review). How did I come across them?

1. Chronic – D.A. Powell (Graywolf Press, 2009)

This was recommended on a poetry board. It’s a book I would never have come across in pre-Internet days. In fact, it wouldn’t have been readily available because it hasn’t (yet) been published in the UK. I found some work online and read a review. It sounded really interesting, and so it proved.

2. Nights in the Iron Hotel – Michael Hofmann (Faber 1983)

I hadn’t read much Hofmann before last year. I was browsing in Borders bookshop and picked up his Selected Poems. I only had time to read two or three poems quickly, but was taken aback by how good they were. I mentioned it to a friend who found it in a bookshop and bought it. He then emailed me to tell me I had to buy it, so I did. I’ve now read all Hofmann’s individual collections. This one, the first, was hardest to find at a half-reasonable price, but I persevered and bought it second-hand online.

3. MUDe – John Redmond (Carcanet 2008)

I found this one through a Facebook status update. A poet whose book I had enjoyed mentioned how good MUDe was. Online, I read a little information about it. It certainly sounded different and I decided to take a chance.

4. Fruitcake – Selima Hill (Bloodaxe 2009)

I’d read ‘A Little Book of Meat’ on a personal recommendation, and then read a fair bit of her Collected Poems, ‘Gloria’. On an online poetry discussion forum, people were discussing what poetry books they were looking forward to for 2009. I tried to check what was forthcoming and found, at the Bloodaxe website, that a new Hill book was due. What stuck in my mind was that it was over 250 pages long – very long for a collection. Of course, most of the poems are very short.

5. Sills – Michael O’Brien (Salt 2009)

I found this selected poems at the Salt website, during the ‘Just One Book’ campaign. It is a bit like browsing a bookstore there. I had never heard of Michael O’Brien, but I could see the cover, blurbs, and a selection of poems. Blurbs do help if they’re the right kind – August Kleinzahler calling it a “large event: our first comprehensive look at a neglected American master” certainly got me interested. Yes, I am obviously a sucker, but the book is pretty good.

So what makes YOU buy a poetry collection?

Read more

What Kind Of Poetry Reviews Do You Want?

American writer, Kent Johnson, sounds off on the thorny subject of poetry reviewing. He suggests that reviews and blurbs have ‘begun to blur in purpose and effect’:

Fawning, toadyish criticism, then, is likely to remain the default setting so long as "negative" reviewing constitutes a potential hazard to the position and advancement of the poet-reviewer. (Interestingly, by the way, it's in top-tier journals like Poetry where negative reviews are most likely to appear, since the capital accruing to the poet-reviewer compensates for the risk.) Given this, maybe it's time that magazines, of all aesthetic shapes and circulation sizes, resurrect the venerable practice of "unsigned" reviews. There’s no question readers, in the main, would be tickled and intrigued.

On the other hand, anonymous reviewing presents another problem. Reviewers might use the cloak of anonymity as a means to trash a poet who had previously commented negatively on their own books or, alternatively, to praise a book written by best friends or family members without the connection being obvious. Kent Johnson says that editors have a key role in ensuring this doesn’t happen.

Mayday contains 32 responses to the issues raised in Johnson’s article, nearly all of which are worth reading. Daisy Fried’s comments are particularly well thought out.

I was taken aback by this part of Stephen Burt’s response:

And here's one more reason so little poetry attracts negative reviews: it's not worth writing a negative review of a book that will sink without a trace, which most poetry books do. Negative reviews in poetry these days only seem worth while when they attack (a) examples of bad trends or (b) people who are very famous and don't deserve it . In both of these cases, a bad poet (a poet I consider bad) is worth "taking down" (seems to me worth a negative review) because bad poetry, praised in high places, really distorts the sense of the art the younger generation gets; such praise, uncountered, makes it harder for new readers to like the good stuff. Under the right circumstances I would write a blistering attack on any of about eight very famous or widely respected poets, with my name attached (you get a cookie if you can guess which poets). I write negative reviews when editors ask me to review poetry I don't like and when it falls into one of the categories above. But I almost never solicit work for review that I know I won't like, and I certainly won't write really negative reviews of poets who aren't already well-known. It doesn't seem worth my time, or theirs.

What kind of reviews do readers want in a magazine like Magma? Have reviews in the UK become akin to blurbs? Are anonymous reviews a good or bad idea? Do you agree with Stephen Burt that it’s OK to write negatively of well known poets, but not of books ‘that will sink without a trace, which most poetry books do?’

A few other recent contributions to the debate which may be of interest:

Nic Sebastian

Aditi Machado

Lytton Smith

Read more

Watch Clare Pollard, Magma Editor, Interviewed on the BBC

In this week's excellent episode of 'A Poet's Guide to Britain' on the BBC, the poet Clare Pollard is interviewed by Owen Sheers about Sylvia Plath's landscape poetry. Clare is a member of the Magma team and is currently editing Magma 45, which will be launched in November 2009.

The episode will be available on iPlayer for the next month - watch it online here or you can catch it on on BBC4, Thursday 14th May at 22.00. If you're in a hurry, you may like to know that Clare first appears 4 minutes into the programme, but it's well worth taking the time to watch the whole programme.

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[SUBMISSIONS NOW CLOSED] Call for Poetry Submissions: Magma 45 ‘Telling Stories’

I’m thrilled to be editing Magma 45, and have decided to ask for poems on the theme of ‘Telling Stories.’ As a poet who has written plays, as well as a screenplay that never got made (a rom-com about a psychic that I still feel would have been a surefire hit…) I’m currently very interested in the way we tell stories through poems – cuts, flashbacks, unreliable narrators, twists. Many playwrights believe in cutting everything that doesn’t drive the story forward, and, though poetry has always been more tolerant of digression, it is always interesting to think about what we should include (and edit out) of our tales. For example, should poetic scenes obey the screenwriting adage: ‘arrive late, leave early’? The theme also comes out of my own obsessions at the moment. I’m currently deeply into folk music – particularly ballads and the strange, subversive tales they tell. I’ve been listening to Fairport Convention and new-folk songbirds like Laura Marling, digging out my dog-eared Collected Yeats, and discovering the wonderful world of the Child and Border ballads. This has led me to write ‘cover versions’ of old poems such as ‘Twa Corbies’ and ‘Reynardine’, and liberally raid what Larkin rather dismissively called ‘the myth-kitty’ to rediscover stories of Zennor mermaids, malevolent faeries, werefoxes and witchcraft. I’d love to read your own attempts to engage with these ancient, oral traditions. Finally, I’ve also chosen the theme because I feel too much contemporary poetry is self-indulgent – concentrating on self-expression to the point where it forgets it has an audience. I feel strongly that, even if our subject matter is deeply personal, we should always be aware we have responsibilities to our reader – to give them everything they need to understand the poem; to entertain; to tell them something new. Great storytellers know how to keep us engaged, leaving space for the reader to make their own interpretations – as my favourite philosopher, Hannah Arendt, said: “Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it.” So the search begins for sparkling anecdotes and tall tales… Only remember the sign pinned above Anne Sexton’s desk: WHATEVER YOU DO, DON’T BE BORING. The deadline for submissions is 15 July. 'Off theme' poems will also be considered. Please see the Contributions page for details of how to submit your poems.

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