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

Unless you are reading us for the first time, welcome back to the Wolf! It feels like an era since we published the winter issue back in December. A busy time it has been for poetry in Britain. It was good to see Don Patterson's Landing Light recognised as one of the more remarkable poetry collections in recent years, though if it was good enough to win both the Whitbread and the TS. Eliot award is questionable. Questionable too is our poet laureate. At the time of going to press Andrew Motion has once again disfigured contemporary poetry with his pithy 'O,Johnny...' tribute to the victorious Fngland rugby team. Granted, the guy has done well enough in promoting poetry, but a shame flow his work doesn't lead from the front. Aside from Motion (he gets enough stick anyway), it's good to see in America how August Kleinzahler is getting some long-deserved recognition. We hope to make Kleinzahler a feature of future Wolf publications, watch this space!

   Since December we have had a phenomenal amount of submissions. Everything has been read by one of us. Though the bulk, of course, have been poems we were pleased to notice a few submitted articles, so we've decided to go with two this time. The articles on Blake and Petrarch are hugely informative and extremely well crafted and we extend our thanks to both Niall and Danijela. Our thanks also must go to Sarah Maguire for providing an enthralling interview. It's one of the highlights among many in this issue.

   The book reviews in this offering are of three poets with first collections endorsed by The Wolf. Additionally, Matt Williams, our web designer, took on an extra role this time around and has given a great review of the late and marginalised poet Barry MacSweeney. An honourable move by Bloodaxe it was to publish his selected poems and hopefully give MacSweeney the readership his wiry brilliance has always deserved. Again the poems are strong and varied. Again with Bloodaxe in mind, we were very pleased to publish two pre-collective poems by exciting young poets Kona Macphee and Cheryl Follon. With all the talk over the last few years of the poetry publishing market being a no-go area for young writers, it seems only fitting that the pioneers at Bloodaxe continue to publish writers they believe in amid such a climate of constriction.

   We ourselves are continually expanding. The Wolf will now reach Dublin, Prague as well as pockets of America, Canada and throughout its central breeding ground of London. Notice that you can also buy a copy of the magazine on-line ( www.wolfmagazine.co.uk ). It may be the easiest way to get a single copy if your local bookshop doesn't stock us. You will notice
too that the website has had some subtle modifications in terms of design, making The Wolf the most all encompassing online experience in British magazine poetry. We feel this issue is perhaps our best so far in terms of all-round quality. Over winter The Wolf has been hungrier than ever. We hope you will agree.