Video: Magma 50 Launch with David Morley, Helen Ivory, Anthony Joseph and Lorraine Mariner

Magma celebrated its 50th issue on Monday 27 June with a full-house Troubadour. A huge and yummy cake was brought in, and everyone collected their Magma 50 souvenir badges. This issue is edited by Clare Pollard, with the newly redesigned Magma magazine featuring  fabulous hand-drawn illustrations by poet-and-designer Henry Simmonds.

There was a brilliant poetry line-up for the evening, with David Morley coming all the way from Warwick; the resonant-voiced Anthony Joseph; and Helen Ivory whose book The Breakfast Machine was published by Bloodaxe. Lorraine Mariner read a selection of poems, all of which have been published in Magma since its very early days.

This was the perfect occasion for Magma to launch its first-ever poetry competition, which will accept short poems of up to ten lines for the Magma Editors Award, in addition to the poetry prize whereby all poems will be judged by George Szirtes. This is a poetry two-for-one you cannot miss: the deadline is 30 November.

Well, for those who missed the launch, we’ve not left you out: make yourself some tea and click to watch the video of readings by these stellar poets. (If you can’t see the video in your email or RSS reader, click here to watch them on the Magma site.)