Launch of Magma 51

What an evening it was. A cold night, a packed house, and the utterly complementary talents of Pascale Petit and Selima Hill as our guest readers.

We were also fortunate to host a large number of contributors, many of whom had travelled some distance – from Sweden, Switzerland, Brussels and even California.

The uniqueness of the Magma launches is that everyone whose work is in the issue is invited to read, and one of the joys of being a Magma editor is that you have the opportunity to meet many of the contributors and hear them read their work, poems you have sifted and re-sifted out of many thousands: poems you love and have read deeply. It’s also a gratifying sight to watch an audience riffling through their copies of the magazine to find the page and read along.

During her reading, Selima Hill spoke of her pleasure at being ‘among poets’ and said something to the effect that rather than feeling separated from her audience at the reading, which is so often the case, she felt as if we were all in it together. Which seems a good place to end this little blog – thanks to everyone – contributors, subscribers, and audience for being ‘in it’ with us.