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[SUBMISSIONS NOW CLOSED] Call for Contributions – Magma 60 on the theme of ‘Freedom’.

by Rob Mackenzie

We are delighted to be editing Magma 60, for which the theme is ‘freedom’. It is very much a theme for our times. Many of the freedoms we enjoy today have not been easily won and we might feel some are under serious threat.

We want poems that touch in some way on personal or political freedom or how those interact. We’d also like to see poems that walk the tightrope between freedom and form.

One person’s freedom can be another person’s constraint. My freedom to make a racket ends your freedom to enjoy peace and quiet. A Government’s freedom to make laws or impose surveillance on its citizens could curtail your freedom to speak or live as you please. The Government will claim it’s for your own good or for the good of society. The Velvet Underground’s melancholy song, ‘I’m Set Free’, envisaged freedom only for finding a “new illusion”. What are the limits of freedom?

This issue has a submissions period before the Scottish referendum on independence and publication afterwards (in November 2014). What did Mel Gibson mean when he shouted, somewhat ambiguously, to his men before battle, “They may take our lives but they’ll never take our freedom!”? What is freedom without the ability to live it?

We talk about having artistic freedom, which may or may not be possible in poetry or in any other art form. Is free verse actually free? Do the constraints of form free the imagination by pulling it in unexpected directions?

In February 2014, a group of writers (in The Guardian) reflected on what freedom meant to them. Novelist, Ian McEwan, wrote, “Every freedom we possess or are struggling to possess has had to be thought and talked and written into existence.” Here is a chance to think and write freedoms and we hope it’s an issue that will be much talked about too.

The deadline is 31 May 2014. Off-theme poems will also be considered. Please see the Contributions page for details of how to submit your poems.

Rob A. Mackenzie and Tony Williams, editors Magma 60.

This Post Has 22 Comments

  2. i am having trouble with the theme. “Freedom” is an abstract. freedom is free to be you and me, free of school, living alone again and liking it, and myriad other much needed and much loved occurrences that come to us, but still an abstract. at least until it is lost.

  3. Dear friend,

    Thanks for the topic freedom. By God’s grace I never think about my external freedom as if it is granted boon since childhood. In spite of it I feel deeply the value and of freedom without. But i cherish Freedom within, to be the master of
    my desires and waves of mind. Do the Magma 60 encompasses the greater emphases on inner aspect of freedom? I am eager to take part and will be able to submit my poem well before expire date.

    In the spirit of freedom
    Yours
    Sujan

    S

  4. Dear friend
    Please let me know do you accept if my poem give greater emphasis to freedom ‘within’ along with ‘witout’?. I very much like to submit my poem within due date.
    with regards
    sujan

  5. Dear friend
    Please let me know do you accept if my poem give greater emphasis to freedom ‘within’ along with ‘witout’?. I very much like to submit my poem within due date.
    with regards
    sujan

    Leave a Reply

  6. My poem(song of personal freedom) will be from the draft of a manuscript that I am working on: if submitted to Magma would I be keeping my i copyright allowing it to appear in the work (A novel) when completed?

  7. Sujan, we are open to poems on any aspect of freedom and indeed to poems that have nothing to do with the theme. We just want good poems, so please send us your best!

    Petronella, you retain copyright on your own work, so no problem. As long as your novel won’t be published before Magma 60 (November 2014), feel free to submit the poem.

  9. R. A. Allen, you have no idea what Ad Hominem means. It is a type of argument. It’s Latin and considered a “fallacy” in logic (say for example during a debate). In short, what it means is during a debate to attack someone personally — an insult — is an “ad hominem” attack.

    Mel Gibson uttering those words in Braveheart, a great movie, is a battle cry to “freedom” as a social-political-human construct. It has ZERO to do with Latin logical fallacies during debate. I mean if he had called them “oppressive immoral fat short bald war mongers” that’s an example of an Ad Hominem attack.

    Now that said, I am going to pretty much agree with your stereotype of screenwriters. (Although it isn’t always true).

  10. Dear sir,
    By the previous mail dated 2, May I requested you to send E-mail, messages etc. as usual . by mistake i have clicked the wrong choice.
    In two or three day i am going to send four poems for Magma 60, on the theme ‘Freedom’. I have already read your letter for ‘call for contributions’ and submission guide lines. My poems are of different size varaing from 50 to 80 lines. I will send them all the four in the man body of the E-mail. –
    1. ‘Freedom to live’ – 15 lines
    2. ‘Chastity is the freedom to love all’ – 19 lines
    3. ‘Freedom : universal phenomenon’ – a long poem in two parts, total lines 80
    4. ‘Enslaved by one but free from all’ – this is my best poem. it is best on the
    experience of Mother Teresa when she treated a dying man. it depicts the
    unique aspect of inner freedom. total lines about 80.

    please let me now do you accept long and short poems both ?

    With regards
    Sujan

  11. Anderson and Sujan

    You can submit poems of any length, although if anyone sent us the maximum of 6 poems and they were each over 100 lines long, we might breath a huge sigh of despair before reading.

  13. Dear friend,
    It is a great surprise and shock to me to see this poem online. It is my unpublished poem sent to Magma for publication with a declaration that it is my original and unpublished work.
    Please undo it and inform me as soon as possible.Rest depends upon your response.

    Please let me know how such things happen.
    In the spirit of the right to keep things confidential.

  14. dear friend,
    It ts matter of great surprice and shock that I have submitted a set of poems on ‘Freedom’ only to Magma 60 with a declaretion – ‘these poems are original and composed by me and hither to unpublished.’
    Please undo it immediately and infom me..
    May I know how it happened? REST DEPENDS _ HOW YOU MANAGE MY GrIVENCES.
    yours
    In the spirit of right to keep confidential

  15. Sujan, we received your submission. But if your poems have appeared somewhere else online, it’s nothing to do with us.

  17. Civa, we don’t mind. Some include a cover letter and bio and some don’t. It makes no difference to us. It’s all down to the poems. If we accept a poem, we’ll ask for a bio in under 30 words.

  18. Dear friend,
    1 – I have already Submitted Four poems for Magma 60
    2 – Please let me know that you have received them successfully. I am not well
    versed in internet communication.
    3 – I have nothing to say about the published. All I want is conformation
    4 – Again I solemnly declare that my poems are my original composition and
    hither to unpublished.
    5 – My biodata :
    My education – M.A. Eng. Lit and Political-Science. 31 years of service, last 15 years worked as principal in higher secondary school and preferred 5 years early retirement to be free to travel and read and write essays and poems having spiritual hue. Lovers of books and Use to travel. Thrice visited Gangotry and Kedarnath and number of other places. lived one year in three phases in U.S. But in spite of inclination towards literary work and travel, obeyed inner call.

  19. My education – M.A. Eng. Lit and Political-Science. 31 years of service, last 15 years worked as principal in higher secondary school and preferred 5 years early retirement to be free to travel and read and write essays and poems having spiritual hue. Lovers of books and Use to travel. Thrice visited Gangotry and Kedarnath and number of other places. lived one year in three phases in U.S. But in spite of inclination towards literary work and travel, obeyed inner call. Preferred to serve Sri Aurobindo society since retirement in 1996 till present day on Divine wages. Now I am 75.preferred literary work since 1973. composing poems and writing essays –

  20. Hello, I hope my submission “tethered” arrived. It has been written especially for issue #60 and not published elsewhere. Please let me know if it has been taken into consideration. Thank you.

  21. Dear friend,
    I have sent couple of email to you. perhaps being not acquainted with the terminology of internet vocabulary I could not explain. what I want –
    1. My four poems already sent to you should the part of submission.
    2. you know my email address.
    3. By being confused your blog as others, I email on – May 22, 2014 at 2:18 am – “dear friend,
    It ts matter of great surprice and shock that I have submitted a set of poems on ‘Freedom’ only to Magma 60 with a declaretion – ‘these poems are original and composed by me and hither to unpublished.’
    Please undo it immediately and infom me..
    May I know how it happened? REST DEPENDS _ HOW YOU MANAGE MY GrIVENCES.”
    4. Do you want my another email address ?
    5. A – I humbly request you to let me know the status of my poems
    B – Should I suppose that you have nothing to do my poems and my
    emails?

    With reguards
    Sujan

  22. Hi,

    Just wondering when you will be notifying the status of contributions for Issue 60. It would be useful to know. I must admit that I have contributions ;mislaid; once in the past, so I tend to get a bit jumpy when the closing date is a few weeks’ past.

    Best,
    Wendy K.

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