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

Now the morning lies open,
                      the night went quite quickly
Memory harmlessly fractures and fades

Townes Van Zandt

This massive issue is built more or less round themes of transition. Or as Tom Pickard’s wonderful poem puts it, here are poems which snap the switch/from this to that. Literally, in the case of David Pratt’s moving poem The Hero. Death and its aftermath - in Jennifer Copley’s poem - or its anticipation - in Vicky Pointing’s - the felling of a tree, the birth of a child, the growing of a child, in the womb, or among the toys and language of the adult world, the unexpected moments which change everything, in several poems here and in C.Mulrooney’s story. Allen Fisher’s poem appears to explore a transition from the language of the cerebral to a state of feeling, and so this issue also conveys the part language plays in the transitions of our lives.

With this issue comes also an index of all writers who have appeared in the first ten issues of FIRE. This is in the form of a supplement which will go out to subscribers. With the supplement are also a number of flyers, primarily supporting writers who are self-publishing their work and who therefore need as much promotion as one can give. But my normal reluctance to send out promotional material still holds - PLEASE DO NOT SEND FLYERS for normal issues of FIRE. Listings of recent books and magazines are to be found in the supplement rather than the main issue this time.

In the next issue there will be a significant showing for some of the most interesting and exciting young poets aged 16 - 25 writing in this country today. They include Kerry Andrew James Deboo, Heather Docherty, Richard Evans, Ashley Faulkner, Sam Geall, B.Holland, Emma McGordon, Charmaine McDonald, Jenny Redman, Stephen Rudd, Catherine Simmonds, Becky Swan, & Rebecca Wilson. The issue will also feature work by Tim Allen, Barry Butson, Tom Clark, Janet Dubé, Johan de Wit, A.C.Evans, Jesse Glass, Albert Huffstickler, Christine Kennedy Gordon Kennedy, Yann Lovelock, Rupert Loydell Sarah McCourt, B.Z.Niditch, Janet Oliver, Rosemary Palmeira, Mandy Pannett, Stuart Pickford, William D. Sherman, Steve Sneyd, Kenneth C. Steven, Chris Torrance, Athanasios Triantafyllou, Paul Ward, Robert Wheeler, Lynne Wycherley, among others, as well as the ‘lost’ North of England poet William Corner Clarke.

Acknowledgements - the three poems by Tom Pickard in this issue are reprinted from his current book fuckwind (Etruscan Books Nov 99) with permission from the author and publisher

Alan Whitaker’s poem ‘Witness’ is taken from his current Redbeck Press collection Snow In June with permission from the author and publisher.

Erratum from FIRE NO.9 - Contributors’ Notes - Bill Broady pointed out to me that he is not from U.S.A. - apologies, Bill, I must have been confusing you with someone else. The other information about Bill, however, is correct.