Acumen #60

The latest issue of Acumen is #60.

As usual the magazine is packed to the ginnels with poetry, articles, letters and reviews.

The articles include a well-researched essay by Mark Victory on poetry in bookshops. It isn't just the usual moan about the lack of interest shown, although the kind of response I got in the 70s along the lines of

"I'm fed up of people asking me if we have any poetry; We don't stock it; There's no demand."

is not entirely absent. There is some hope in Mark's expose which I won't try to summarise here.

What I especially enjoyed in this issue was the interview with Penelope Shuttle. It is very enlightening and although much of it is centred on her relationship with her late partner, Peter Redgrove, there is other insight too. In something of an aside about political poetry, she comes up with this marvellous quote:

poets use language as a weapon of truth, whereas our political rulers in or out of office use it as a weapon of untruth.

I also applaud her answer to the question

What in your opinion helps poets keep their writing fresh, evolving and vital?

Spending as much time reading other poets (contemporary, from earlier eras, and in translation) as they do writing their own poetry. Nourish the roots of your own work by steeping your imagination in the poetry you read.

Acumen
6 The Mount, Higher Furzeham, Brixham, TQ5 8QY, UK
ISSN 0964-0304
£4.50 [$10 USA]
Subscription: 3 issues £12.50 (UK) [£16 Europe or USA sterling; $45 surface $50airmail USA]
visit the website of Acumen

Read reviews of earlier issues.