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

Roy Blackman:

As far as I’m concerned poetry is about the truth. The truth means death; and before that, life. You can be overjoyed, overwhelmed, terrified, aghast, humbled, elated, insulted, provoked to ridicule and contempt, or calmed by them. What you can’t be, in poems I’m interested in, is bunkered, blasé, naive, ignorant, cynical, stupid, wilfully self-deluded, or telling me what I ought to believe, think or do. Your beliefs will only impress me as I see them incarnate in your poetry, making more of life, not diminishing death. That’s what I’m on the look-out for: poems that offer me more of life and death than I’ve become used to. That’s why I still co-edit Smiths Knoll, still enjoy it and still think it’s doing a good job.

Michael Laskey:

The anticipation of pleasure in some new poems from someone we’ve published before, and the quickening of interest in a strong batch from someone we haven’t - there are eighteen first-time Smiths Knoll poets in this issue. Regular editorial meetings at Roy’s: that rewarding close attention to the language and shape of poems, and the dynamic of reaching agreement, the laughter. Typing up each issue, getting to know the poems probably better than anyone except their writers. Then the magazine itself: the look and feel of it, the smell of the boxes newly arrived in my hall. The day Roy and I spend despatching it: the business with envelopes, labels, renewal letters, stamps, till the car boot’s full of it. Our subscription list going on inching up, and my complete run inching along the bookshelf. Our fliers with the sample poems, Jeremy’s designs. And letters from subscribers mentioning poems they’ve enjoyed, evidence we really have readers.