The Final Front Ear
How many ears does Mr Spock have? Three! The left, the right and the final front. Maybe working on Magma 57 has addled my brain, but the old playground joke seems to me about the best summary of the role…
Who said it? A male or a female poet?
Every competition it’s the same thing, we poets get sucked into endless debates on Facebook as to whether there is a ‘male’ of ‘female’ way of writing and whether this is responsible for female writers getting less coverage. So here’s…
Poems that come free with a tube ticket
When you commute to work or make your way home, it is always such pleasure to spot and read, in your part of the train carriage, poems that crop up unexpectedly in the Underground. This year being the 150th anniversary…
13 days to Christmas, 4 days to enter the competition
It's never too late to write poetry...
Magma 54 launches at the Troubadour
Another packed evening as well over 100 poets and friends met at the Troubadour in Earls Court, London, on 19 November to launch Magma 54. The Troubadour’s famous cellar was full as the editors, Cherry Smyth and Judy Brown, each…
The importance of place
Where do you write your poems? We’re fascinated by the places where poetry happens, the idea that inspiration might not just be a moment-in-time but in a moment-in-place. The Guardian’s regular feature on is popular for just that reason: there’s…
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…
Magma’s Early Days
I’ve been around Magma since before it was Magma, a name chosen “to suggest the molten core within the world, hidden as deep feelings are and showing itself in unpredictable movements, tremors, lava flows, eruptions”. Magma began not so much…
Supported by Arts Council England