sex, violence, profanity - poetry?

Anyone know why this guy came to our site eh? Just can't think.

It was clearly naive of me to think I would not be misunderstood. I came to this site because it is a site for writers, poets. Some extremely good ones from what I have seen. The tag line for Mouseion is to grab attention. The intent is to provide a printed poetry journal which offers something different to the often inaccessible, weighty, 'literary' journals that weigh in at around £7 per tome. Poets of scope and talent have little space in the printed world to be published simply because their poems are more edgy than poems about the Scottish Highlands and country kitchens and suchlike. I want to encourage submissions from open-minded poets, who don't jump to conclusions. Jessica Burton

Jessica, Don't mean to be rude or anything (I'm a big fan of independent magazines and yours sounds like fun) but I don't think swearing has pushed boundaries in poetry since about 1823. Lots of poems containing sex, violence and swearing win competitions, although possibly not in Bournemouth, where it seems you're based. And even more are published in the 100(+) small press poetry magazines currently published in the UK. Out of those magazines, I'd estimate about 5 discriminate against poems containing swearing and sex. And if you think most poetry is about Scottish highlands and country kitchen's you've obviously missed the entire back catalogues of Bloodaxe and Carcanet, who are probably Britain's major current poetry publishers, not to mention the life's work of Philip Larkin. And er... TS Eliot, WH Auden, Sylvia Plath, Simon Armitage, Paul Farley... the list goes on. But I hope your magazine will as well. Good luck, David

well thank you David, your comment was genuinely very informative :-) I was indeed well aware of the Bloodaxe and Carcanet range, they are fabulous publishers and theirs is the kind of thing I'm going for, but they are book publishers and they recommend having several poems published in magazines before considering submitting a collection (quite right) and hopefully Mouseion will be one of those magazines. I am also familiar with the poets you cite (I wouldn't be much of a poetry editor if I wasn't) and theirs is the broad style I'm aiming for with Mouseion. Paul Farley is a dude and I believe he is judging the bridport prize this summer (a competition I *will* be entering). I'm not saying the poets and poetry are not out there, and they are indeed being published in some magazines and book form, i just hoped Mouseion would help to broaden the range for 'edgy' poetry, as there seems to be plenty of magazines who, though they may not discriminate against swearing, possibly balk at publishing it. I know my poem with the 'c' word in it has not been accepted anywhere though I believe it's totally justified. I will check out that site though! Ah, the obvious failings of an amateur. Thanks again though David.

Update - I visited the poetry library in London and it's fantastic! Highly recommend. Jessica