Jane Alyson Clarke

Whoops! I nearly forgot to tell you…

The poem is called “Halicephalobus Mephisto or Dirt Divinations” and it’s about a worm under pressure. You can pick up issue 90 of Magma directly from their site or from various bookshops with the foresight and good taste to sell Magma’s current and back issues. Digital copies are also available.

Here’s what Magma say about themselves on their site:

Our aim is to promote the very best in contemporary poetry. Poetry that’s alert to the world we live in, that’s honest and above all, unexpected. It may come from previously unpublished or emerging poets or the more established. We make a point of including unknown poets alongside known names, and we’ve published Seamus Heaney, Don Paterson, Sean O’Brien, Alice Oswald, Al Alvarez, Wendy Cope, George Szirtes, Gillian Clarke, John Burnside and Mark Doty among many others.

And here’s what I posted about Issue 90:

The latest edition is called “Grassroots” and the theme is, more or less, “hope in the face of struggle.” If you turn to poetry for solace and inspiration in times of difficulty, then this latest edition of Magma might be for you.

Am I delighted for my work to have been published in such a prestigious and long-running poetry publication? Reader, I am. I am!