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

TELEGRAM. £0.70 (subscription £2 p.a. for 3 issues)

Telegram is a new magazine edited in London by Ian Robinson and John Stathatos, founders respectively of Oasis Books and Oxus Press. Both have a lengthy pedigree of publishing fine work with their own presses and it will be interesting to observe the progress of their new, joint vehicle.

     Telegram receives no subvention whatsoever, the editors not being enamoured of the concept of grants for magazines, and thus is wholly dependent on subscriptions to stay alive - as is Shearsman for that matter. I’d recommend it to any reader who wants an honest, well-edited magazine that toes no line, and has no axes to grind. It’s small and compact, and has a good deal more unity to it than I would have thought possible in a journal with 2 editors. There are a few interesting names present in the first issue, perhaps better known on the English small-press scene than anywhere else (eg Peter Dent and E.A. Markham). The best material in the first issue is probably the poems by John Ash and Ken Smith. Ash is about the most interesting new poet to appear in England for some time, and Smith is rather under-rated. The best prose is by Alasdair Paterson, a name new to me.

     A promising debut then, of a well-produced and well-edited magazine. There isn’t much competition for it in England at the moment, with only Kudos, Megaphone, and Palantir being really independent of any stultifying clique. (Why do so many magazines degenerate into clique publications, where a group publishes together and reviews each other’s work in glowing terms ? Do they really want readers, or do they just want a grant to get themselves into print ? At times, I wonder.)

     Telegram may be ordered or subscribed to at 12 Stevenage Road, London SW6 6ES, England. It deserves your support.