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

Few observers of the present British cultural scene can fail to notice an increased interest by younger people in the modern arts. This is particularly remarkable in the field of poetry, formerly perhaps the most minority art of all. This interest is not merely the traditional one of response, but, more importantly, one of creativity: young men and women are writing Poetry today, not as an esoteric activity but as a natural part of the kind of full life which they expect a sensible organisation of society to provide. Evidence of this interest abounds: the mass audience of the Albert Hall rallies, the steady beat of the Poetry-and-Jazz meetings, the contemporary folk movement, the overlap of the music of the Beatles into verse and prose, the new Liverpool sound in the spoken word, the development of concrete and phonic poetry, the Festival fringe readings, the emergence of grass-roots groups like Workshop Two.

Some of these manifestations contain within themselves elements that may require a constant play of criticism, but whatever one's feelings as to their direction or lack of direction, they provide conclusive evidence of a change in poetry towards a more popular art form in a quantitative sense. Obviously there are social not to say economic factors which have contributed to this situation, an analysis of which would form a special article in itself.

The point which I would like to develop is the conflict involved in the existence on the one hand of this increased amount of creativity and on the other hand the lack of resources available for its outlet.
The most striking example is in the world of hard-back publishing. Those firms which publish poetry in hard-back editions claim that they do so for reasons of prestige, or because of their interest in maintaining poetry as an art form, etc., but that they rarely succeed in achieving sales of hard-backed 'library' editions which break into four figures. A sale of 800 copies for an individual book of poems is considered 'good'. When one bears in mind that these slim volumes are priced at 18s. or 21s. or more, low sales figures are hardly surprising. There is no reason to doubt the publishers' claim that they make a loss on such publications: but the effect of this loss must make them extremely careful in selecting any new poet for publication; it is no good his being a Derby runner, he must be, potentially, a Derby winner.

At first sight there might seem to be a number of magazines that publish verse as their main function. A few of the more established ones appear quarterly, and much of their space is occupied by the already recognised poets. There is a larger number of 'little' magazines, many of them duplicated efforts, and appearing spasmodically as time or funds permit; they are nearly all run with enthusiasm, but few remain in existence for any great length of time. Their circulation is extremely limited (mainly through lack of sales drive and inability to advertise themselves) and the cost of printing is far too high to enable them to survive on their small circulation. Booksellers who might provide a sales outlet require 33.3% discount, and accept copies only on a sales or return basis. This virtually prices the little magazine out of all except a few specialist bookshops.

At the same time that little magazines struggle to survive, their editors are overwhelmed with material that they cannot afford to print. 'We receive', wrote one editor recently, 'at a conservative estimate, something like 800 poems a year; three out of four of these are eminently worth publication. The size of this magazine is limited by our printing facilities; and we are thus able to publish only about 150 poems a year. In other words, about 450 publishable poems have to be sent back to their authors every year.'*

Other magazine editors, apologising for the delay of six months or a year between acceptance and publication, make this point that their stocks are loaded and sometimes appeal for no more contributions to be sent 'for the time being'.

Grass-roots poets, coming up against such limitations as these react, in various ways. A number, feeling that their own rejected work is as good as a lot of that which is in fact published, develop a 'conspiracy' theory which sours them to the point where they give up creativity altogether; and they become cynical critics of work that is published. Some try to adapt to the values of commercialism, turning out formula pieces in prose for journals which they despise. Others who refuse to stoop to formula writing find a refuge in cliquism and, without a wide enough audience with whom to seek a connection, turn inwards, writing in the main for themselves. In this they further alienate any potential audience, since an audience postulates a need to connect, that is to turn outwards. It is this kind of effect which gives much modern British poetry its relatively cynical look, its apparent lack of direction, and an inner quality of negativeness in many cases.

Changes will come, but in the meantime the poet can seek, and I believe many are seeking, to build up a writer-and-audience relationship through the spoken poem, through public reading, through development of audience participation, and through the direct sale of their poems at such readings. Against the laws of economics the artist can only set his will to achieve something more creative. The emergence at grass-roots level of poetry-reading groups may be making a real contribution to the re-establishing of the connection between writer and audience. This is the fundamental prerequisite for a turning outwards in literature.


*The Poetry Review receives about 8,000 poems a year.