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

Last summer, Magma readers were asked to nominate a favourite sea poem as part of the SeaBritain 2005 celebrations. In the Autumn, Magma made a short list of the top ten poems nominated and asked for votes.

   The results were announced at a live event in the Chapel of the Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich, in November 2005. John Masefield’s Sea-Fever won by a nautical mile. The nation is clearly still in love with his ringing call:

     I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
     And all I ask is a tall ship, and a star to steer her by.

   Martin Newell, the only living poet on the shortlist, came a somewhat unexpected second with his Song of the Waterlily, superbly illustrated by marine artist James Dodds. Masefield’s “dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack” propelled his Cargoes into a strong third place, closely followed by Matthew Arnold’s Dover Beach.

One of the surprises in the poll was the relatively low vote for The Ancient Mariner. Coleridge’s sea-epic appears well known but not well loved by Britain’s poetry readers. Much less familiar poems,
like Elizabeth Bishop’s At the Fishhhouses, Charles Causley’s Convoy and even the anonymous 8th century Anglo-Saxon The Seafarer attracted more votes.

A selection of the favourite sea poems was read at the Greenwich event, including an electrifying performance by Robert Wynn Simmons of part of The Seafarer in the original Anglo Saxon. And Magma maintained its commitment to the best in contemporary
poetry by bringing leading Scottish poet Kathleen Jamie to Greenwich, together with Theo Dorgan from Ireland and Paul Farley and Jane Routh from Lancashire.

Full details of nominations and final results are available on the Magma web site, www.magmapoetry.com