Poetry London is an arts charity and leading international poetry magazine where acclaimed contemporary poets share pages with exciting new names. Published three times a year in March, June and October, each issue contains new poetry, incisive reviews and features. Poetry London holds an annual poetry competition and launches each issue with readings from distinguished poet contributors to the magazine.

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Autumn 2021: Issue 100

Poetry London's 100th issue marks 33 years in print as one of the UK's leading poetry magazines. This hardcover bumper issue – featuring a specially-commissioned silver block-printed design – features a retrospective showcase of poems entitled 'Our History in Verse', which includes work by Les Murray, Alice Oswald, Kwame Dawes, Vénus Khoury-Ghata, Sharon Olds, Moniza Alvi, Fred D’Aguiar, Alice Notley, Kathleen Jamie, Frances Leviston, Sarah Howe, Niall Campbell and Romalyn Ante. Elsewhere in its pages are brilliant translations of new work by the German poet Durs Grünbein, the Sri Lankan Tamil poet Nillanthan, and the Dutch poet Anne Vegter. The issue’s prose includes an essay by Christopher Reid on his new anthology of London poems, Poems of London (Everyman's Library Pocket Poets Series, 2021), as well as an excerpt from Dan O’Brien's A Story that Happens: On Playwriting, Childhood, & Other Traumas (CB Editions / Dalkey Archive Press, 2021), which offers some hard-won insights into how we source our stories and why we begin to tell them. Other prose contributions include an insightful 'Postcard from the '90s' by our Reviews Editor Dai George, as well as criticism by Jenny Wong, Aoife Lyall, Stephanie Sy-Quia and Pratyusha, our current Ledbury Editor-in-Residence. Other highlights are the winners of the 2021 Poetry Prize, as judged by Malika Booker, and 'How To Be A Poet: A Collage', composed of exclusive excerpts from interviews published by Poetry London over the past decades.

You can read a selection of content from the magazine, plus some exclusive online content, here.

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  • 'The name Poetry London might suggest a publication geared to a metropolitan coterie. Nothing could be further from the truth. Poetry London spreads its net wide to include the latest from Europe, America, and other parts of the world.'Ciaran Carson
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  • 'For its consistent representation of the best in British poetry, for the keenness of its critical response, for the way it attracts work from both established poets and the brightest newcomers, and for its editorial acuity, Poetry London is indispensable.'David Harsent
  • 'Poetry London publishes in-depth reviews and a wonderful range of international poets: young poets who have not yet published a collection, old hands, and poets from a wide variety of traditions. The one thing they have in common is their excellence.'Ruth Padel
  • 'There is no other literary magazine I read to find out what poets are up to across the pond. More than The London Review of Books or the TLS, I look to Poetry London. Whenever it arrives in my mailbox I cancel my plans and spend my time, instead, within those ecstatic pages.'Matthew Dickman
  • 'Poetry London has been my favourite poetry magazine for some years now. It keeps readers like me plugged into the most consistently exciting bits of the UK poetry scene, while bringing across some of the most important transatlantic writers too.'Sarah Howe

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