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

Here is our promised review of magazines produced by small presses. We can’t say ‘small magazines’ - some of them are stonking.

Our comments are, of course, informed but necessarily subjective, even biassed. Readers and indeed editors who would like to take issue with our judgements - well, you know where we are. You are advised to read the magazines listed below before swallowing our assessments, and in many cases we seriously recommend you take out a subscription or, at least, get your local library to do so.

Thanks to all editors who responded to our request for review copies. For reasons of space we haven’t been able to mention you all this time, but another batch will be covered in the next issue. Editors who have not sent us review copies, and would like to be mentioned, should get them off to us asap.

PN Review. 208-212 Corn Exchange, Manchester M4 3BQ. 64pp (A4). £16.50 for 6 issues.

For many years the most rigorously intellectual and incisive of British literary journals, and in some ways an arbiter of critical taste. Recent issues have been the stronger for Michael Schmidt’s greater involvement, a relief when it had become a by-word for dry and self-important critical maundering. The quality of the poetry may not be higher than ever before, but the poems are now interesting, diverting, even exciting. There is nothing frivolous about PN Review, but it is considerably less po-faced than it was. The reviews section is varied and generally excellent. The News & Notes section is often bizarrely eclectic. Sometimes lively letters section. PN Review is one of the few magazines that no serious writer can afford to be without.

Poetry Review. 21 Earl’s Court Square, London SW5 9DE. 80pp. £12 for 4 issues.

The journal of The Poetry Society. Where PN Review has wood-cuts and disquisitions on metalinguistics, Poetry Review has cartoons and regional round-ups. Tries to be intelligent rather than intellectual; certainly more reader-friendly than most. Peter Forbes, the current editor, has initiated something of a return to form. Besides reviews and features, it has a letters section and some pretty curious competitions. There’s a neatness and m-o-r feel to much of its poetry, but PR is nearly always entertaining, even at the risk of being slight and/or modish. Above all it lets you know what is happening now in British poetry.

London Magazine. 30 Thurloe Place, London SW7. l60pp. £15 for four issues.

More broadbased than most, as much concerned with art, fiction and allied genres as it is with poetry. But its poetry is very good indeed and its reviews likewise. Hefty and authoratative. Worth the money. A really enjoyable read. That sort of thing.

Poetry Durham. School Of English, University of Durham, Elvet Riverside, New Elvet, Durham DHl 3JT. 44pp. £4.50 for 3 issues.

Less well-established and 1ess ambitious than the foregoing: but its standards are high and the quality of the writing comparable. Modest format that verges on the dull, though cleanly and professionally produced. In Its intelligence, seriousness and to an extent the tenor and direction of its poetry and articles, it seems to take its bearings from PN Review. No doubt about it, this is an important magazine.

Ambit. 17 Priory Gardens, Highgate, London N6 5QY. 96pp (B5). £10 for 4 issues.

Big, chunky, actually designed with an arty feel to it (we can’t remember an issue that didn’t have nude photos or drawings). Strong fiction and plenty of poetry, variable in standard, often with an international flavour. Its reviews - which cover books other magazines don’t - are generally brief but informed. Good value.

The Rialto. 32 Grosvenor Road. Norwich NR2 2PZ. 48pp (A4). £6 pa.

Large format, lots of space round the poems. Striking illustrations, but somehow not keyed in quite to the magazine. Occasional articles. Publishes a lot of people though attempts to be discriminating: sometimes fails appallingly. We always feel it is on the verge of being splendid: sometimes it is.

Orbis. 199 The Long Shoot, Nuneaton CV11 6JQ. 68pp. £12 for 4 issues.

Treads a tightrope between the serious literary journal and a relaxed, reader-involved magazine: occasionally loses its footing but rarely plummets to the depths. Excellent reviews section plus magazine round-up, ‘Past Masters’ and ‘Back to Basics’ (technical matters) sections.

Echo Room. 45, Bewick Court, Princess Square, Newcastle Upon Tyne NE1 8EG. 44pp. £5 for six issues, which is extremely cheap.

Very much its own magazine. Small-scale, simple format, no frills. No frills describes much of the poetry, which tends to be off-centre and hit-or-miss (but when it hits…). The neatly-lined little number has no place in The Echo Room. We can’t see it publishing a haiku sequence or sonnets. We love it, frankly. It takes chances. Sometimes comes a cropper but often publishes stunning work by writers you just don’t see anywhere else. Unless it’s in:

The Wide Skirt. 80pp. £5 for three issues.

Readers who know us won’t be surprised that, alongside PN Review, The Wide Skirt is our favourite magazine. It is easy to confuse the two in fact, which is why editor Geoff Hattersly stays with the AS format, and keeps it cleanly but very simply produced. Latest issue sees the demise of the review column, which is a pity, but leaves more room for splendid poems by new writers and old hands alike. Issue 11, for instance, has one of the best poems published this year, ‘The Parade with Flags…’ by Harry Guest.

Scratch. 24 Nelson Street, The Groves, York YO3 7NJ. 40pp. £3.50 for three issues.

Seems to be an embryonic Echo Room or Wide Skirt, whatever that means. It is new and still finding its feet (ie it has published a lot of nonsense - probably work that it asked ‘names’ to submit and then felt too embarrassed to turn down). Again, simple format, but cleanly done. And with clear-eyed, measured reviews that are actually informative. Very well worth the money.

joe soap’s canoe. 30 Quilter Road, Felixstowe IP11 7JJ. 108pp. £3.50 for one annual issue.

A legend in its own time, jsc has gone swisher and annual. It no longer publishes reviews, which were often so scathing that reviewers were getting ignored or worse at poetry gatherings. Editor Martin Stannard has clear ideas about what he doesn’t want; what he does is harder to define, but it generally has an American feel to it, especially if it’s American, as in the latest issue a poem and interview by John Ashbery, in some quarters (here for instance) regarded as the greatest living poet.

Stride. 14 Oxford Road, St James, Exeter EX4 6QU. 140pp. £7.50 pa (3, just possibly 4 issues, it’s hard to tell)

Where jsc is sure what it doesn’t want, Stride is - depending on your viewpoint - either very generous in its editorial policy or wholly lacking in discrimination. Over the years it has published a great deal of truly dreadful stuff and a smaller proportion of good work. But what the hell. It has poetry, prose, illustrations, interviews and (generally poor) reviews.

Margin. The Square Inch, Lower Granco Street, Dunning PH2 0SQ. 96pp. £12 for 4 issues.

Glossy, B5 format, stylish. ‘On the edge of literature and ideas’, as it says. International. Fiction, articles, photographs, illustrations. Very little poetry, in fact, and what we’ve seen so far has been either just-competent (even by luminaries such as James Merrill) or downright bad. A splendid general arts magazine in search of a poetry editor.

Poetry Wales. Andmar House. Trewsfield Industrial Estate, Tondu Road, Bridgend CF3l 4LJ. 72pp. £8 for 4 issues.

Professional, well-produced and intelligent. You might have qualms about some of its ‘contemporary poetry’ poetry. Also publishes fiction and articles. Welsh-oriented as you’d expect, but not exclusively so. Knowledgeable and often penetrating reviews.

Planet. PO Box 44, Aberystwyth, Dyfed. l20pp. £2 per copy.

Those Welsh again. Literate people. Stories, poems, articles, reviews, illustrations. Handy size and best cover of the batch. A broad range of interests and a thundering editorial. Unfortunate piece in this one, ‘Artists As Friends’ (‘one knows such fascinating people’), but never mind. Yet more splendid reviewing (by Planet, I mean).

Celtic Dawn. Prebendal Press Ltd, PO Box 30, Thame, Oxon OX9 3AD. 56pp. £2.50 per copy.

Rum stuff. A fascination with astrology, runes and ancient Egypt, coupled with not very exciting poetry and dense articles on international writers. An advert in the back for the St Tiggywinkle’s Trust for wounded hedgehogs

Ore. 7 The Towers, Stevenage, Herts SG1 1HE. 76pp. £5 p.a. (2 or 3 issues).

Claims to have ‘a synthetic atmosphere of legend, belief in “soul” … leanings towards British heritage.’ They said it, not us. Fuzzy.

Smoke. Windows Project, 22 Roseheath Drive, Halewood, Liverpool L26 9UH. £1 for 4 (this is not a typing error).

Vigorous and unpretentious, the best-value little little magazine available. Publishes short fiction as well as variable quality poetry. At this price you should be seeing for yourself.

                                                                          (to be continued…)