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

What makes a good poem?

I went some time ago to a Patrick Heron retrospective at the Tate in London. His paintings were large, bright abstracts, full of doodled shapes and, above all, saturated, nay drenched, in colour. They were not about anything. In fact, the artist once said that subject matter was the least interesting thing about painting. When I left the exhibition, however, Millbank seemed to have lifted one tone up in brightness from what it was when I entered the gallery; the whole world looked suddenly bigger.

Now, poems can't do without subject matter. But so many poems that come through the letter box are nothing but subject. These poems tell you a story, or an anecdote, or tell you something is unfair. But they don't, on the whole, leave you with a feeling that the world has subtly altered. Poems that move us, here at Brando's Hat, do something strange to the hairs on the backs of our necks. It's something to do with language, I think: how it can surprise with an image, or a form of words.

And it's something to do with looking: the best poets see the world clearly, as if it were new again. You walk out of the poem into a new world, even if that feeling only lasts for a moment. Poems are not about life, they either have life or they don't.

I hope at least some of the poems in Issue 7 do that for you. We had pleasure in reading them. We dedicate this issue to the memory of John Ward, and include a section devoted to his work. He was a longstanding member of Manchester Poets, a quietly assertive and kind man, and at his best, a graceful poet. He will be much missed by all of us who knew him.