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

I published my first poem in a little magazine called New Voice in 1962, my first article in Jazz Journal and my first newspaper piece in The Guardian in 1963, and my first reviews in Tribune and Ambit in 1964, the year I also started Move, my first little magazine. There were some other things I did in those far off days, including short prose pieces (I’m not sure they’d count as short stories) which were broadcast on the radio. I’m mentioning all this simply to indicate that, as I was not an early starter (I was 26 in 1962), I’m now getting old and, more importantly, that from the beginning I just wanted to write in a variety of forms. I didn’t want to be a poet in the sense of only writing poetry, and it seemed to me important to be equally active as a reviewer, essayist, and editor. And to write about jazz, politics, and other subjects as well as literature.
    
    There are people who would say, and not without reason, that scattering my energies in that way possibly stopped me producing anything substantial in a specific field. And I’d be the first to admit that a great deal of what I’ve written will eventually be consigned to the dustbin of history. I once talked about this with a fellow writer of similar temperament and he said that the best we can hope for may be a footnote in a book about a famous author or a particular period or a literary movement. And we may not even get that. I’ve not got a problem with this and the ephemeral nature of most writing was demonstrated when I once found that my fish and chips were wrapped in a newspaper featuring one of my articles. In any case, I’ve spent forty years writing about forgotten writers and musicians so I know how soon reputations fade and books gather dust when they’re left unread on the shelves. But if you don't write you’ll never discover if something might last and that’s as good a reason as any to continue turning out the words. Someone, somewhere, might just read and remember them, and even if they don’t last a lifetime or longer they may well provide present entertainment or information.
    
    I recall reading about a lady who became an expert on James Joyce and when asked why she said, “It beats playing bridge on Tuesday afternoons.” I have to admit that among my reasons for writing is the fact that it has always been more interesting than many other things. And it has led to a variety of experiences. I’ve given poetry readings all around Britain and in various other countries, and I’ve done a fair amount of part time teaching along with other jobs. I’ve met a lot of interesting people, made some good friends, and encountered a wide range of oddballs and misfits. One or two poets whose feathers I’ve ruffled in reviews have confronted me, but on the whole the meetings have been amiable and I’ve gained something from them. Some of my friends have occasionally accused me of an anti academic bias, and it’s true I’ve had a wary relationship with the academic world in general if not with individuals in it, but I’ve never doubted that I can learn a lot from listening to professors. There is an anti intellectual culture in this country but I despise it and have nothing but contempt for those whose vision is limited to the length of the football field.
    
   I’m proud of having edited a couple of little magazines and it could be that they helped a few worthwhile writers by circulating their work to an audience that appreciated it. Likewise, it could be that the hundreds of reviews I’ve written for magazines and newspapers may have persuaded some people to read the books I dealt with. I’ve usually tried to be positive when reviewing and to look for the good things in a book and not just focus on the bad. I’ve no time for those reviewers who think that writing a review is an excuse for a display of their own cleverness. As I said earlier, I may have ruffled a few feathers (easy enough to do with poets) but I’ve never intentionally set out to destroy a book. The literary world is full of feuds and fights and I’ve tried to keep clear of them. And of groups and cliques. When I edited Palantir I think I published a fairly broad range of writers, though I can’t deny that a partiality for the Beats led me to print reviews and articles about their work and to persuade a number of them to contribute to the magazine. The Beat interest continues with the articles I currently write for Beat Scene.
    
   Mentioning that takes me to my liking for American writers, and I’ve written at length about them, as my collection of essays, Beats, Bohemians and Intellectuals, will show. I came out of the army in 1957, just as the Beats were hitting the headlines, and the whole range of what was referred to as The New American Writing fascinated me. But I’d been been reading earlier American writers during my military service and the expatriates of the Twenties and the radical poets and novelists of the Thirties interested me as much as the Beats and Black Mountain Poets. However, this preference for American literature has never stopped me reading my fellow British writers, nor reviewing many of their books and publishing their work in Move and Palantir.
    
   I reviewed regularly for Tribune for over thirty years and it pleases me that I’m still an Ambit reviewer and a contributor to Jazz Journal. And I’ve no regrets about the poems, stories, articles, and reviews I’ve written in the past four decades for a wide range of publications, some of them still around, others long forgotten. Poetmeat, New Statesman, New Society, The Industrial Unionist, Poetry Review, Anarchy, Evergreen Review, The Penniless Press, Prop, The London Magazine, Outlaw, Stand, Second Aeon, Jazz Monthly, and many more. Large and little names but, for me, all part of the same story, and I admire those enthusiasts who struggled to publish a small magazine as much as I do those who worked on bigger things. I’ve always had a liking for little magazines and have written short histories of several of them. They are where writers often start and even where some of us spend much of our time. I’m happy to be writing this in a little magazine edited by an old friend who has been around as long as I have.