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

Early last year John Alcock gave a Cannon Poets workshop on mirrors and reflections. I couldn’t attend, - my appearances at Cannon poets meetings being rather infrequent and brief as I have ME. However John let me have the notes and as usual I went off at a bit of a tangent and came up with a poem  titled ‘Luck Of The Draw’ (printed in the last edition of The Cannon’s Mouth). A few months later BBC Wildlife Magazine ran their annual wildlife poet of the year competition, asking for poems concerning our relationship with the natural world. Often my poems languish in folders whilst I procrastinate about redrafting them, but as my poem fitted the description I entered it.

To my amazement I was one of three runners up. I soon came down to earth or rather down to my garage, with the realisation that the prize money was the exact amount I needed to pay the insurance excess for the repairs being done to the car’s rear bumper. I  had over zealously parked it and hit the back wall of the garage earlier in the Summer.

The poems were printed in the October issue of BBC Wildlife magazine, with very appropriate accompanying illustrations. The winning poem and the poem awarded a prize for best humorous poem were read on Poetry Please on Radio 4. My poem being a some what bleak number couldn’t score any points for humour. The issue had a supplement on wildlife in Sri Lanka and the two magazines were bound together with a paper sleeve which bore the words ‘hand crafted from elephant dung’. I was concerned this might put off potential readers but I saw no flies or dung beetles round the magazine racks in W H Smith.

Health permitting I will now be a front row participant at any of John’s future workshops in the hope of gleaning more inspiration. I’ve also decided against parking the car in tight spaces in future.
For anyone interested in the BBC competition, the entry form is usually printed in the April edition of BBC Wildlife magazine.