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

What an interesting venture, two selectors to pick 50-60 poems out of 370+. It was reassuring that after our first separate readings, we found we had chosen 30 of the same poems. This must say something about the quality of those poems.

It took us a whole day, spent together, to choose the remaining 30. It was lovely to give ourselves time to reflect and discuss, to feel our way towards what we were looking for, what made one poem work and another not. We came away full of respect for the effort all poets make to capture a moment, an observation, the flavour of life, on the page.

Choosing poems feels quite an intuitive process, but it depends on much more than personal taste. A poem is more than beautiful words, an interesting idea. It must have form and the form must fit the content. Rhythm, the beat at the heart of the poem, helps it to sing. Rhyme must work for the poem, must not draw attention to itself. If a strict form is used, it must work properly.

Reading the poems aloud to each other helped enormously. It enabled us to listen to what each poem was saying and to hear if it said it effectively. It was easier to hear the music, or lack of it, to pick up if a poem flagged and lost our attention. It was easier, heard aloud, to detect if a poem was really prose, or whether, if it was in free verse, it had a tightness, had created its own form.

We enjoyed the variety of these poems. We enjoyed the stories, the precise observations of landscape, weather, and, especially, birds, the humour, the sadness. Our choice, of course, is personal. Other selectors would have picked different poems. It felt a real responsibility, making our decisions. If you’ve not been selected, don’t be discouraged. So many poems only just didn’t make it. One of the lessons we learnt from our reading and rereading, was how sometimes we don’t give enough time and attention to each poem. Some quiet ones revealed themselves slowly, and then slipped into our chosen pile.

So, thank you for trusting us with your poems, for the privilege and the pleasure of making our selection. We hope that these ones which we really loved and were excited by will be admired by other poets and readers of poetry.