10 Poets in Poetry Cornwall
The 2009-2010 editions of Poetry Cornwall yield a fine crop of poems to commend to discriminating readers. Yes, this is local fare with all that the label implies – the simple, honest and homespun, generally unaware of international trends, or even of Modernism itself. Free verse predominates, but there’s more than a sprinkling of rhymed verse. Indeed, technically the most accomplished poem – Abigail Wyatt’s Mite – would not be out of place in a nineteenth-century publication. And if the local scenes are described with the loving attention to detail we find in amateur art society shows, they are none the worse for that. True, the really original, and that panache of the professional’s touch are absent, but so too is the mindless adoption of contemporary styles and themes that make the poetry of more prestigious journals such depressing...
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4 Poets in Magma
Magma is a go-ahead poetry magazine that chooses a different editor for each of its thrice yearly issues. It is generally represented at the Ledbury Poetry Festival, and launches its poets at the Troubadour Coffee House in Old Brompton Road, London SW5. There are generous review sections and, like many others in the UK, the magazine receives funding from the Arts Council. The issues put on line by the Poetry Library date from 2005-6, and include many poems not displayed for copyright reasons. Most of the work, I fear, is closer to prose, and not very interesting prose either, but I’ve picked four examples that offer something better. The first is In Praise of Land Drains by Jane Routh, who modestly describes herself as managing a woodland and keeping a flock of geese. The poem is at: http://www.poetrymagazines.org.uk/magazine/record.asp?id=24824 It’s...
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