The North reaches issue 70 against all the odds and common sense. It is without doubt the most recent and is also perhaps the finest issue to date. Certainly in terms of the poetry, features and reviews. Not to mention the cover.
To mark the occasion, we are asking readers to choose a favourite poem (or 7) from the first 70 issues (also features and reviews if you like) some of which we will reprint in the online offshoot East of The North as well as we hope next year in a print anthology of the best North poems. Everyone who votes for favourite poems will receive a free Poetry Business ebook of their choice.
In the meantime, we hope you are reading or going to read the current issue. Two of the best-known poets in The North 70 were also in Issue One back in 1985, when they were rather less well-known. Simon Armitage‘s new and frankly outstanding poem ‘The Holy Land’ is typical of The North‘s (and his own) core virtues, certainly in the way it is written and what it is about — a bold and brilliantly imaginative response to the felling of the Sycamore Gap tree. This latest issue also features Michael Schmidt, who is just now writing the best poems of his (or anyone’s) career. Other N70 poets who go back a long Northern way include Pascale Petit with four fantastic pieces we are so glad to have, and Helen Mort, also at the top of her considerable game.
It is wrong to single out poems and poets especially in this very varied but uniformly high-quality issue. Still, look out for Dzifa Benson, Kathy Pimlott, Paul Stephenson, Anastasia Taylor-Lind and Emily Wills, and the features on for instance Laurie Bolger, Doreen Gurrey, Alan Payne and Shash Trevett, as well as the two extraordinary New Poets Prizewinners Freya Banff and Caleb Leow and the five extraordinary new poets in the fabulous anthology Five. Finally, it’s right to say how much we appreciate having two fab new poems by another Issue One writer, Ian McMillan — Ian who is in N70 three times actually, with his review as well as two key poems from 40 years ago about the Miners Strike, taken from our (out in October) Coal anthology.
Thank you everyone for reading this far and for going on reading in back-issues of The North magazine.