Poems in Mslexia and Stand

If at first you don’t succeed. At last, I have a poem in Mslexia magazine in their showcase section, themed: Eyes. The poem came out of a Poetry Kit prompt using a Jackson Pollock painting. Yes, poetry lurks in the strangest of places.

Mslexia has been a godsend to women writers since it hit the news stands in 1999. With 11,000 subscribers, the quarterly magazine is a financial success and can pay its contributors. It’s packed with short fiction, poetry, advice columns, literary news, photographic work and thought-provoking articles, with regular slots, as well as some left-field surprises (a piece on Jungian Archetypes!). Mslexia‘s competitions can be the stepping stone to an agent or publisher.

This summer’s Eyes showcase is spread across 16 pages and was judged by Helen McClory. Alongside my poem ‘The Colour Police’, she chose stories by Kirsty Cowan, Clare Shaw, Lauren du Plessis, Jenny Tunstall and Asia Haut, and poems by Siobhan Harvey, Katrina Dybzynska, Heleana Bakopoulos and Sophia Rubina Charalambous.

To buy a copy of Mslexia (issue 94), or take out a subscription for four copies a year, click here https://mslexia.co.uk/magazine/ You can also register for their free e-newsletter which sends out writing prompts, literary ‘gossip’ and info on a wide range of events and opportunities.

A lit mag to nurture and love, Stand has been bringing quality poetry and prose to our attention since 1952. I was delighted to have four poems in the Spring issue this year, alongside some wonderful work by Sharon Black, Jo Burns, Graham Clifford, Sally Festing, Chris Hardy, Patricia McCarthy, Sian Thomas and John Vickers, among others.

Stand‘s signature wide & narrow shape, allows for breathing space and all sorts of lineation. Three of my poems really tested the type-setter’s patience! I salute John Whale and his team for giving our words such a fine white paddock to gallop in.

As well as poetry and short stories, Stand also has a short Review section, plus at least one feature article. Elizabeth Cook’s in-depth article on the poet and painter Isaac Rosenberg really hit the spot for me. At Sussex University I studied a course entitled ‘Art and Letters in England (1900-30) and fell in love with Rosenberg’s extraordinary work – another from that gifted generation lost to war.

To buy a copy of Stand (Vol 20, no 1), take out a subscription, or submit your work, please click on: https://www.standmagazine.org/welcome

Stand Magazine pays tribute to Eavan Boland

It’s great to be in another issue of Stand, which offers the perfect place for poems that play with horizontal layouts.   

 

Poets in this issue include Richard Aronowitz, Grace Atkinson, Kate Behrens, Claire Booker, Maia Elsner, John Glover, Robin Houghton,  Laura Potts, Jessica Sneddon, Nic Stringer, plus a series of five extraordinary poems from Robert Hamberger.

There’s also a short story by Ted Slaughter and reviews by Jennifer Wong, Stella Pye and John Gallas.

In his foreword, managing editor, John Whale, references Coleridge’s 1797 poem ‘This Lime-tree Bower My Prison’ as his lockdown poem of choice. In the poem, Coleridge provides intense, detailed observations of nature, which enable him to bear the isolation of his illness with fortitude and even appreciation.

Says John Whale: “At this moment of of our current pandemic it is worth celebrating this historical example of the appreciation of particularity arising from a thorough-going meditative attention to nature. It shows us what compensations can emerge from privation.” 

The first six pages of Stand 226 contain tributes to the Irish poet, feminist and editor, Eavan Boland, who died in April. A great loss to the world of poetry.

Boland famously said it was ‘easier to have a political murder in an Irish poem than a washing machine.” So-called ‘domestic poetry’ still has to contend with prejudice from some editors (often, but not always, male), who would airbrush it from their pages. Apparently, they fail to see that all experience contains the potential for poetry, including such deeply personal relationships such as motherhood. 

In one of the tributes carried in Stand, Shirley Chew quotes from Boland’s poem sequence, Anna Liffey. It’s a beautiful statement of the right to be subjective in a poem, to bring yourself right into its core, and not simply be a commentator on the ‘big subjects’: 

Make of a nation what you will
Make of the past
What you can -

There is now
A woman in the doorway.

It has taken me
All my strength to do this.

Becoming a figure in a poem.

Usurping a name and a theme.

To buy a copy of Stand, Volume 18 (2), or take out an online or paper subscription, or to submit your work to the magazine, please visit: http://www.standmagazine.org