Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

About 14

14 is an illustrated poetry magazine devoted to poems of fourteen lines only. Its guiding principle is to explore modern sonnets, ghost sonnets / shadow sonnets and not-remotely-sonnets-at-all, exploring a fourteen-line tradition which has been constantly evolving in English since Wyatt in the sixteenth century.

When the idea of 14 was first considered in 2005, no dedicated sonnet magazine was in print. After the first few issues, we gradually realised it could be even more interesting and provocative to officially broaden 14's editorial stance to include all kinds of fourteen-line poem, and let the different types of poem mentioned above sit alongside each other in a kind of dialogue.

Nowadays the poems in 14 rarely look like sonnets, and rarely rhyme like some readers might expect them to do. Thankfully our readers have happily agreed it makes for interesting contrasts across the magazine. As far as we know, we're still the only printed magazine in the world doing this kind of thing (though in the past there have been on-line "e-zines" from overseas, exclusively for traditional sonnets, by comparison). Perhaps poetry's town ain't big enough for more than one fourteen-line mag, and that's absolutely ok by us.

14 publishes established writers alongside talented new poets. Though we do have  certain poets whose work we are aiming to bring to a wider audience on a regular basis, usually at least two-thirds of the poets in each issue are new to 14. We have been particularly pleased to give a platform to some UK poets early in their writing careers - Eric Gregory award winners, future PBS recommendations, Forward Prize nominees, Poetry Business or Templar Pamphlet prize winners, as well as writers who have gone from their pamphlet publications to full collections with UK publishing houses. And 14 is also very engaged in the influence of poetry from beyond the UK, always aiming to feature a significant number of international poets. One quarter of the poets in the latest issue publish most of their work overseas - France, Norway, USA, Canada, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand have been represented in the last couple of issues.

The magazine is printed in a unique square format to suit the length of its poems, each issue is carefully put together, often using themes and sequences, and giving plenty of space for each poem to breathe.

The magazine's website announced in June 2012 that its Autumn issue would be its last.