Latest from Poetry Salzburg Review

It’s always a joy when Poetry Salzburg Review drops onto my door mat, with its Austrian postmark,  gloriously surreal cover and meaty, 180 or so pages of new poetry, translations, reviews and interviews.

Issue 31 is a particular treat for me, as it contains two of my poems, alongside work by Jackie Wills, Sean O’Brien, Robert Peake, Hugo Ball (writer of the Dada Manifesto and co-founder of the infamous Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich 1916), Carole Bromley, James Caruth, Jessica Mookherjee, John Lyons, Richard Skinner, Ruth Bidgood, Marjorie Sweetko and Robert Hampson, among many others.

There’s a good selection of international work in this issue, including poets with connections to South Africa, America, Australia, Canada, Trinidad, India, Cuba, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Mexico, Ireland, Wales and Scotland. It’s refreshing to hear voices and styles informed by very different cultural backgrounds.  

Poetry Salzburg Review is ” one of the most stimulating eclectic and certainly international outlets for quality contemporary poetry,” says the poetry magazine’s newest editorial board member, Keith Hutson. He joins Vahni Capildeo, Robert Dassanowsky and editor Wolfgang Görtschacher in selecting what goes into the bi-annual magazine.  With several thousand submissions a year, this is no easy matter, but Hutson is clear about the task. “It seems to me that the journal’s only aim is to find and publish poetry that feels important – whatever the subject matter – and in the search for these poems, established writers are welcomed and new writers are celebrated.”

This issue has a fascinating interview with novelist and poet Elaine Feinstein, whose many impressive credits include translating the brilliant Russian poet Marina Tsvetaeva, thus helping to secure her a place in the cannon of great women poets writing in a language other than English. I for one am hugely grateful to her.

Issue 31 also offers readers fourteen late sonnets (most of them previously unpublished) by the poet Peter Russell, who was a protégé of TS Elliott and long-term correspondent with Ezra Pound. Plus a chance to read a generous selection of work by the recently deceased Frances Galleymore.

Poetry Salzburg Review is published twice yearly. To submit your own work, or buy a copy of Autumn 2017 (issue 31) or take out a subscription, click on the following link: Poetry Salzburg Review

 

Magma 63 Eavesdrops on Conversations

Literary magazines exist to offer  an exchange between reader and author – ideas and inspiration flowing freely between minds.

So bravo to Magma 63’s editors Susannah Hart and Lisa Kelly for their fascinating cache of poems and articles on the gentle (and not so gentle!) art of conversation. Poets in this issue include Sophie Baker, Claire Booker, Jane Draycott, Jody Porter, Robert Seatter, Martha Sprackland, Eoghan Walls and Jackie Wills.

And as part of Magma’s on-going commissions, Daljit Nagra presents his new poem ‘The Look of Love’ which draws on a couplet by lesser known Elizabethan poet, Thomas Campion – “Fairenesse seene in th’outward shape is but th’inward beauties Ape.”

Plus there are some excellent feature articles in this issue. Christine Webb writes eloquently on the experience of having one of her favourite poems (‘Hurrahing In Harvest’ by Manley Hopkins) recorded for her by an actor at The Poetry Exchange. If you’d like to do the same, or would like to listen to already recorded poems, then visit:  www.thepoetryexchange.co.uk

And what about posterity? Is this still a possibility for contemporary poets? Tom Chivers (Penned in the Margins), Amy Wack (Seren), Neil Astley (Bloodaxe) and Parisa Ebrahimi (Chatto & Windus) enter the conversation.

Ambit’s Poetry Editor, Declan Ryan, considers Ian Hamilton’s concept of ‘perfect speech’ and finishes with a poetry exercise: write a poem that says something that should have been said to someone at the time, but who is no longer around.

And of course, there are reviews of some of the latest poetry collections including ‘Citizen’ by Claudia Rankine, ‘Loop of Jade’ by Sarah Howe, and ‘Careful What You Wish For’ by Peter Sansom.

To read some of the poems in issue 63, or to buy a copy, check the Magma website at: www.magmapoetry.com

Passion on the beach (doggy style) in The North

A man and a woman meet on a windswept Northumberland beach, but it’s their dogs that lock eyes and find passion!

My poem, Coitus at Bamburgh Beach, is one of  139 poems selected by guest editors Jonathan Davidson and Jackie Wills for inclusion in the latest issue of The North poetry magazine. Poets published in issue 52 include Paul Stephenson, Katrina Naomi, Alison Brackenbury, Caroline Smith, Holly Hopkins, Ian McMillan, Claire Booker, James Caruth and Matt Bryden.

At a handy £8, issue 52 must be among the best value ever for poetry-lovers, working out at the staggeringly good value of 6p per new poem. Plus there’s a fascinating discussion between Patience Agbabi and Ros Barber about their mould-breaking collections – respectively Telling Tales (Canongate Books) which re-envisions Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, and The Marlowe Papers (Sceptre) a stunning verse novel which takes as its premise the idea that Marlowe actually wrote Shakespeare’s plays.

Issue 52 also has articles on whether poetry in the UK needs to become more international in scope; the harsh economics facing the poetry industry; and interviews with three fine artists about their experience of reading poetry as non-poets.  Plus 39 pages of poetry reviews!

To buy a copy of The North or to submit poetry, please visit: www.poetrybusiness.co.uk