Editorial

The mini-features in this issue, supplied by Gwyneth Lewis and Karen McCarthy Woolf, are on the topic of what changes between poetry collections. How does our understanding of our own work change? How do approaches to writing shift between books? And how has the world/scene that a book goes out into also changed? Both poets handled the challenges of such a provocation so well. It is a subject that has gnawed at me a little over these past few months, both because I have published a new collection of my own – also, and maybe more significantly, my work as editor has brought me into contact with a larger number of poets who are also about to publish new books.

I understand that the general reaction to someone publishing a new collection should be excitement on their behalf (or perhaps envy), but for my part I cannot help but feel a certain sympathy towards them – or perhaps some protective instinct, as though they were people about to go through a difficult time. If this is my Scottishness poking through, then forgive me. Our national characteristic that could turn the singing of “Happy Birthday” into a lament.

Still, I say this because it strikes me that the aim of the poet is not publication, it is the discovery of a readership. The poem is a message that wants to find an ear – and it seems harder than ever to do this. Of the poets in this issue, Paul Farley, Charles Lang, Gwyneth Lewis, Karen McCarthy Woolf, Jake Hawkey, Esther Kondo Heller, Amit Majmudar, Vidyan Ravinthiran, Karen Solie, Sean O’Brien and Daniel Hahn are all to publish books in the next year. It is a source of pride that Poetry London could showcase some of their new work – we should wish them our best. And of course, buy their books so that we can properly hear the messages that they have for us.

*

I am conscious that even as I write this in mid-December that the publication of this editorial in the Spring issue will mark a year of being in the role of editor at Poetry London. How has time passed so quickly? On commencing the role, I was warned that one of the factors that might burn an editor out is the reading of so many poems. I can understand the sentiment – but find myself disagreeing. In truth, the portion of the job that is trickiest is not the reading but rather the declining of so many poems. An important distinction. By my last count, in the period across August and September, our submissions portal was receiving on average around 91 poems per day – which would have the magazine receiving over 33,000 per year but with space to publish perhaps 120. It has been common for me to keep an individual submission open on my desktop for a week while knowing that I had to refuse the poem for reasons of space – but just not wishing to send a rejection to such good work.

I say this not really for any sympathy but more in the spirit of honesty. I enjoy the reading, the poring over new work by poets already in their stride, the discovering of new poets, poets who have never appeared in the magazine before. Perhaps the long hours of selection are worth it for those rare times where, hearing the message, one can say ‘yes’.