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 connection to grassroots and how did the creative process work? Was it a first time for you too?

MF: I have been writing generative TextArt poems regularly of late, prompted by short lines of text from a wide range of sources. With Magma’s ‘Grassroots Poetry’ theme, it was immediately obvious that in addition to using different fonts I could use colour – literally – to heighten the visual effect as well as relevance when this text moved through its generations.

My view of ‘grassroots’ in this context is of eclecticism: the vibrant range of poetic styles and approaches. My use of TextArt is essentially to produce visual found poetry: the transitions in the generative process are experimental because unpredictable.

This is the second time I have made a submission to a magazine’s poetry theme and had it selected for the cover – and I am delighted!

Magma: Do you usually write concrete poems? Do you consider yourself more of a poet or an artist who happens to write words?

MF: I am an eclectic writer with periods of a singular focus, from sonnets to found prose poems to concrete poetry. I would consider myself a poet rather than artist; however, my recent joy of producing TextArt is in how the process allows me to be artistic with shapes and patterns and colours.

As a teacher, I always particularly enjoyed introducing students to experimental poetry and encouraging their writing of this, especially concrete poetry, cut-up and erasure.

Magma: How does your daily life and your day job influence your work as a poet or are they completely separated?

MF: As a retired teacher I now have the time to write that I never had when working! I also have more time for reading and reviewing others’ poetry, as well as engaging with the writing community through experiences like this with Magma.

Magma: We know you are an American living in the beautiful countryside in Devon. Has your writing being moulded by all that green? Has it changed since your move to the UK?

MF: Although always aware of the ‘American’ voice in my writing, having actually spent most of my life in the UK, I am most influenced by writers here. In addition to my retirement from teaching, living in beautiful Devon is an aid to writing! More specifically, I have over recent years worked collaboratively with a former teaching colleague and artist/photographer Nick Dormand where we produce linked image and text based primarily on the East Devon coast. So green and blue…

Magma: What are you working on at the moment? Did this opportunity with Magma make you want to explore more the boundaries of what a poem can be?

MF: I am currently writing a prose poem sequence, and have just had a concrete poetry/TextArt collection published with paper view books. This experience with Magma is wonderful in sharing TextArt as a poetic process.

In terms of encouraging my further explorations as a writer, I’d want to acknowledge how Magma, and all those other poetry forums with submission opportunities and publication/promotion, help to encourage writers/writing by sharing work widely. In my case, having TextArt showcased on the Magma Poetry cover is most supportive and a prompt to continuing.

**

Mike Ferguson is an American permanently resident in the UK. His most recent poetry publication is Drinking Watermelon Whiskey (Red Ceilings Press, 2023).