THE DARK HORSE

I’m very pleased to have an essay in the new issue of The Dark Horse magazine. The Horse is the only literary magazine (indeed, the only magazine of any kind) that I always read from cover to cover. It really is one of the very best in the UK: beautifully designed, entertaining, and with probably the best poetry of any UK journal.

 I met its editor, Gerry Cambridge, when we were both performing at the Granada Poetry Festival in Nicaragua in February, and Gerry was kind enough to commission me to write a piece about the Festival. I was delighted, because I’ve always admired and enjoyed The Dark Horse and this was a pleasant way to sneak in there without immediately having to risk Gerry’s opinion on my poems… Anyway the article is there, and I had great fun writing it. (If you’ve seen my post about the Festival, you’ll have some idea why: and if you haven’t, put ‘Nicaragua’ into the search box and it should come up.) And alongside my essay is a fine group of moving and highly original poems by the excellent Kei Miller, a fine essay by D.M. Black on the Scottish poet Robert Garioch, a highly amusing and incisive essay by Helena Nelson on ‘Poetry in the Age of Hype’, new poems by Douglas Dunn, Stephen Payne, William Bedford, Martin Crucefix, Rory Waterman and others. There’s also an interesting piece by Charlotte Newman about R.S. Thomas, a poet who has always fascinated me. Altogether a really excellent issue full of variety, and written by people who know about poetry, care about it, and have the ability to write engagingly.

I go around all the time recommending The Dark Horse to people. It really is outstanding: I have a subscription – yes, I actually pay to read it and have never regretted it. And I’ve arranged a special deal for new subscribers: Take out a subscription and Gerry Cambridge will send a free copy of the magazine to anyone you like. Just click here to subscribe, – http://www.thedarkhorsemagazine.com/subscribe.html – and then email gerry.cambridge@btinternet.com to tell him you’ve seen my blog, and give him the address where you’d like the free copy sent. Merry Christmas!

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