Editorial

I apologise for an editorial that is perhaps less personal and more around the business of what the magazine is trying to do, but these past few months have been some of the busiest – but I hope that this issue, and our upcoming online initiatives, reflect some of the fruits of this work. The autumn issue is always a pleasure to create because we have the centrepiece of the results from the magazine single poem competition. The prize saw a huge 50% increase in submissions on the previous year and so was harder than ever to judge. We thank Victoria Kennefick for all her attentiveness in picking out three such wonderful poems.

The issue also showcases work from two poets, Nasim Luczaj and Freya Gillard, who have been mentored for the past year by Pascale Petit as part of the Poetry London Apprenticeship Scheme which was supported by the Fenton Arts Trust. Pascale is such a champion of new writers, and it’s been great to hear how the poets responded to her guidance.

Lastly, by this issue’s release we are around a month from the beginning of an exciting new chapter of Poetry London. As a print-based journal, we have a nice rhythm of publication cycles that see the magazine in your hands every four months, but sometimes it feels like we can disappear between publications. A grant from the Hawthornden Foundation will change this – supplementing our print schedule will be the online publication of weekly prose conversations and monthly mini-issues of poetry. All this is to come, and we warmly thank the Hawthornden Foundation for their generous support of the magazine.

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this issue’s wonderful poets – and we save our last thanks to these writers and to the subscribers whose support underpins all we do.