Magma Poetry 57 The Shape of the Poem

On this issue

In Magma 57 Ian McEwen and Hannah Lowe showcase a range of poems that exhibit visual awareness, showing how space on the page is a vital part of any poem. We recognise most poems as poems from their shape on the page before we have read a word. When we do read the words our attitude to them is already conditioned by that recognition – that piece of visual code which says ‘read this as a poem’. At a finer level spatial form helps to lead us through the pace and relations of ideas in work which is entirely ‘mainstream’, as Mario Petrucci explains in his article in the magazine. Other poets exploit spatial experience in more emphatic or extreme ways to create primarily visual poems (and Paula Claire’s brief survey of modern visual poetry discusses several examples).

Other delights in the issue include a commissioned poem from Patience Agbabi, accompanied by an interview exploring its composition, poems by the winners of the Eric Gregory awards for 2013 and Robert Montgomery talking about his favourite poem (‘So many lives’ by John Ashbery). We hope you will enjoy this slightly unusual take on Magma’s vibrant submission inbox.