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

Welcome to our first issue.We hope the new Iota pleases you. It certainly pleases us. Over the last six months we have garnered the best work submitted to us from four continents and selected down to the poets represented here. We decided on an anonymous selection process because we felt strongly that inclusion should be based entirely on the poems rather than on the poet’s reputation. We didn’t want to be swayed by names we recognised; we wanted to be delighted by poems standing in the world alone. We decided that we wanted each poet represented by more than one poem, and that we would consider each piece of work on its merits irrespective of length or poetic ‘school’. So here they are: the fruits of the first swathe of submissions.

We have some ambitious plans for Iota. Each issue will feature the very best in exciting new poetry, reviews of new collections and features on the best new and established contemporary poets. We also plan to have articles on craft and poetics; articles on creative process and articles where upcoming and established voices are given the opportunity to ‘sound off’ about some ‘burning issue’ related to contemporary poetry. If there is something you really think needs saying, or something to get off your chest, contact us with a one-hundred-and-fifty word proposal. Of course, each issue will feature a right to reply through ‘Letters to the Editor’. We want Iota to be a new and important vehicle for the conversations and debates around 21st Century poetry.

In the future, we plan to have three issues per year dedicated to poetry published in Spring, Summer and Winter. We also intend to produce an Autumn Iota Fiction issue which has the same broad aims and the same type of content as the poetry issues. Iota Fiction will feature a selection of new short stories, book reviews, essays and commissioned articles. It promises to be an exciting step in the journal’s future development. Better still, we are giving the first one away free to our subscribers (as at August 31st 2009). We also invite readers to vote for their favourite poem of the issue and to send comments. Selected comments will be published online and the poem with the highest number of votes will win a free Templar book for the author.

We are conscious of the fact that Iota has been a respected poetry journal since its foundation in 1987 by David Holliday. We are aware that since its foundation Iota has had a philosophy of publishing a wide variety of contemporary poetry from both UK and international voices and has always had a commitment to giving new writers a chance. Bob Mee and Janet Murch continued that commitment through the six years of their custodianship. The new editorial team intend to uphold the tradition and ethos of Iota as we develop the journal further.

Over the last twenty-one years many established poets have featured in the pages of the journal, still more poets who are carving out excellent reputations had early work published there. It has been a fertile proving ground for many and offered the first opportunity for publication to still more poets. We hope that mix will continue; we hope that alongside the best poets writing today, the reader will find many poets to watch out for in the future. We hope there will be familiar names; but also international poets being introduced to a new audience.

I would like to extend my thanks to Janet Murch and Bob Mee for making the editorial transfer as easy as it could possibly be. It has been a pleasure to work with them in ensuring that Iota continues and strengthens. I would also like to thank Alex McMillen of Templar Poetry for the sound advice and for agreeing to take on the publishing, distribution, marketing and subscriptions end of Iota. We are sure that the journal will benefit enormously from his innovative approach as a publisher and from the exceptional quality, production and design standards set by Templar Poetry in everything they produce.

Finally, thanks to all those subscribers who stayed with us through the changeover, and thanks also to those new ones who have come on board since. Without you there would be no Iota at all. We appreciate that in the current climate, it required an act of faith to send a subscription to a journal whose future was uncertain. Thanks too to all the poets who sent submissions and waited patiently for a reply while we sorted everything out. It was good of you to trust us by tying up work you could have sent elsewhere. To those who didn’t make it into Iota this time round, I hope you will continue to submit. To those who did, I hope you feel that we have done your work justice and that you too will support us in the future.