UK online magazines for poetry &c.

I knew there were online magazines produced in the UK that I didn't know about, so yesterday I put a call out and was amazed to learn of so many. Here's what I found. Please let me know of any I've missed, and I'll update accordingly.

The list so far of online-only, poetry-publishing, UK-based mags, last updated 10 November:

Amaryllis Poetry (http://www.amaryllispoetry.co.uk/)

And Other Poems (https://andotherpoems.wordpress.com/)

Angle (http://anglepoetry.co.uk/)

Antiphon (http://antiphon.org.uk/)

Blackbox Manifold (http://www.manifold.group.shef.ac.uk/)

Black Sheep Journal (http://www.blacksheepjournal.com/)

Burning Bush 2 (http://burningbush2.org/)

Canto Poetry (http://www.cantopoetry.co.uk/)

Clear Poetry (https://clearpoetry.wordpress.com/)

ctrl+alt+del (http://theabsurd.co.uk/cad/)

The Clearing (http://theclearingonline.org/)

Compass Magazine (http://www.thecompassmagazine.co.uk/)

Datableed (http://www.datableedzine.com/)

The Fat Damsel (https://thefatdamsel.wordpress.com/)

Ground: Poetry Faith and Doubt (http://www.ground.org.uk/)

I Am Not a Silent Poet (https://iamnotasilentpoet.wordpress.com/)

Ink, Sweat & Tears (http://www.inksweatandtears.co.uk/)

Intercapillary Space (http://intercapillaryspace.blogspot.co.uk/)

The Island Review (http://www.theislandreview.com/)

Keep Poems Alive (http://keeppoemsalive.com/)

The Lake (http://www.thelakepoetry.co.uk/)

Lighten Up Online (http://www.lightenup-online.co.uk/)

Litter (http://www.leafepress.com/litter/)

London Grip (http://londongrip.co.uk/)

M58 (http://www.m58.co.uk/)

The Manchester Review (http://www.themanchesterreview.co.uk/)
Message in a Bottle (http://www.messageinabottlepoetrymagazine.com/)

Molly Bloom (http://mollybloompoetry.weebly.com/)

Morphrog (http://www.morphrog.com/main_frame.htm)

Nutshells & Nuggets (http://nutshellsandnuggets.tumblr.com/)

The Open Mouse (https://theopenmouse.wordpress.com/)

Poems in Which (http://poemsinwhich.com/)

Prac Crit (http://www.praccrit.com/)

Snakeskin (http://www.simmers1.webspace.virginmedia.com/index.html)

Spontaneity (http://spontaneity.org/)
Starting Out (https://thecurlymindblog.wordpress.com/2015/11/06/starting-out/)

Stepaway Magazine (http://stepawaymagazine.com/)

Stride (http://www.stridemagazine.co.uk/)

Tender Journal (http://www.tenderjournal.co.uk/)

Three Drops from a Cauldron (http://threedropspoetry.co.uk/)

Turbulence (http://turbulencepoetry.blogspot.co.uk/)

The Undertow Review (http://theundertowreview.webs.com/)

Your One Phone Call (https://youronephonecall.wordpress.com/)

Enjoy!

The Magazine Life

I love the magazine life--that is, publishing poetry in literary magazines. There's the hopefulness of sending poems out, the lows of rejection, the giddy pleasure of acceptances, and that's just getting started. 


Today's been an unusually full day for magazine activity. It began when I opened my email this morning to find proofs for the next issue of Drunken Boat. In the afternoon, I received an email accepting a personally important poem, "My Mother's Ashes," for the autumn issue of Poetry Review, and when the post arrived, there was my contributor's copy and cheque from New Welsh Review. Opening it and seeing the other poets therein was a treat: Chinese poet Xiao Kaiyu, translated by Pascale Petit, fellow stablemate at Seren and simply lovely person; Philip Gross, whom I see at events and conferences from time to time; Harry Man, who was my MA student the first year I taught at Bath Spa; and Marianne Burton, who once took a class of mine at The Poetry School and I've seen from time to time since. I'm looking forward to reading the issue.


And here's an email from Hayden's Ferry Review in the States, asking for a bio for my poem in their next issue. It's been a splendid day of little excitements.

Lit mag junkie

That's me. I'm a lit mag junkie. I stand at the entrance to the AWP book fair looking as though I'm gazing at a fountain of Belgian chocolate. I set a $100 budget limit each conference and blow it every time (though admittedly that involves books, too).

Are you a lit mag junkie? What is it that drives us? A certain combination of literary delights and outstanding production values? Finding a special section that's just what we always thought should be in a lit mag, were we designing our own, like an insanely large section of short reviews?

This is on my mind partly because I'm going to that magical book fair next week and partly because I've discovered (thanks to Cathy Wagner) a brilliant, newish mag, Lana Turner: A Journal of Poetry and Opinion. It's edited by the outstanding poet and critic Calvin Bedient, whom I remember unimpressing markedly in my one meeting with him while I was an undergraduate at UCLA. Sadly, I remember the poem I showed him--sadly, I remember the meeting in fine detail--and have to acknowledge I understand his reaction.

Anyway, enough about youthful embarrassments. There's a generous sampling online of the annual printed issue, and I look forward to holding one before long. In the meantime, fellow lit mag junkies, come forward and tell me your favourite journals past and present, the qualities that attract you to some and put you off others--&c., &c. I know I'm not alone.

"Notes from the underground: a fresh breed of literary magazines"

in today's Independent. Not only are the magazines promising, but the national newspaper coverage of the matter too.

The American poetry magazine scene

Most UK poets don't realise how many more US magazines there are than in the UK. First, in the US most English departments have their own literary magazine, a practice that's rare in the UK. Second, the proliferation of creative writing programs has been accompanied by a proliferation of magazines and small presses founded by their graduates. Third, partly because of the greater influence of experimental and ethnic poetics on the mainstream, the range of poetries--the range simply within what's considered mainstream--is much, much broader. Consequently there's no "one" magazine that's It; there are a lot of Its, depending on your taste. In the UK I find that people feel they've made it once they've appeared in TLS, Poetry Review, or The Rialto (in descending order). Here's a starting list for comparably admired and desired magazines in the US, starting with the most esteemed:

Agni
American Poetry Review
The Atlantic Monthly
Boston Review
The Chicago Review
Fence
The Iowa Review
The Georgia Review
Hudson Review
New American Writing
The New Republic
The New Yorker
The Paris Review
Ploughshares
Poetry
The Southern Review
The Virginia Quarterly Review

These magazines publish comparably high quality poetry, are considered excellent places to publish, and are held in high esteem (still comparable in the quality of the work they publish to TLS and Poetry Review):

American Letters and Commentary
The Antioch Review
Barrow Street
Bombay Gin
Boulevard
Callaloo (black writers only)
Colorado Review
Conjunctions
Denver Quarterly
Drunken Boat (online only)
Epoch
Fulcrum
The Gettysburg Review
Gulf Coast
Field
Five Fingers Review
Five Points
Harvard Review
Hotel Amerika
Indiana Review
Jubilat
The Kenyon Review
Manoa
Michigan Quarterly Review
The New England Review
Ninth Letter
Parnassus
Pleiades
Pool
Prairie Schooner
A Public Space
Salmagundi
Seneca Review
Sewanee Review
Shenandoah
Southwest Review
Tarpaulin Sky
The Threepenny Review
TriQuarterly
Verse
Western Humanities Review
Witness
The Yale Review
Zyzzyva (open only to US West Coast writers)

Also impressive, but less widely esteemed and/or of not quite the quality of the above:

Alaska Quarterly Review
Arts & Letters
Blackbird (online only)
Black Warrior Review
The Bloomsbury Review
Columbia
Court Green
Crazyhorse
Free Verse (online only)
Green Mountains Review
HOW2 (online and women only)
LIT
The Massachusetts Review
Meridian
Missouri Review
New Orleans Review
Northwest Review
Notre Dame Review
Quarterly West
Parthenon West Review
Salamander
Slope (online only)
Sonora Review
Third Coast
Willow Springs


There are many more well produced, quality literary magazines besides: Calyx, Chattahoochee Review, Cimarron Review, Crab Orchard Review, Faultline, The Greensboro Review, Hanging Loose, Hayden's Ferry Review, The Literary Review, Many Mountains Moving, Mississippi Review, New Letters, The Seattle Review, Tampa Review, West Branch--and more.

These categories are blurred, to be sure; many of them seem to me to be on the fence between two. I'd be glad to hear from other American poets about their views on the most esteemed and highest quality journals; I haven't seen Canary, for one, so I'm unsure where to put it. I'll probably post a longer, revised list once I've been to the AWP.