The Little Magazine Symposium

Little poetry magazines had a profound impact on literature in the late twentieth century as a conduit for the avant-garde during a period when the mainstream British literary press was largely controlled by just a handful of traditionalists who abhorred experimentalism. As new exciting forms of verse and literature developed on both sides of the Atlantic it was these periodicals which fomented what became known as the ‘British Poetry Revival’, little magazines attracting a whole new readership to experimental verse. This rise of poetry magazines and small presses from the late-1950s was assisted by the new availability of cheaper printing technologies (offset lithograph, Mimeograph and early photocopiers). By the 1960s dozens of independent publishers and hundreds of poetry journals appeared around the UK – particularly in what we might call ‘industrial England’ - the Midlands and the North.

This symposium combines reflections from those involved in the little poetry magazine scene of the 1960s and 70s (Tina Morris, Jim Burns, Jim Pennington) with some of the leading writers about the small presses (Sophie Seita, Ross Hair, Doug Field) in a relaxed exploration of the idiom. The event begins with an exciting opportunity to see rare poetry magazines from The John Rylands Library collection with archivist Jessica Smith.