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Blogs, featured poems, news and events, issues, and submission calls.
IN THE RIALTO
A two poem blog
Here is one of my favourite poems from the current issue (No. 90), of the magazine. CATFORD CYCLING CLUB RACE THROUGH ASHDOWN FOREST The normal fawn-coloured morning is scored through with a fast-moving artery of red the jerseys of young bearded men on a...
1 Poultry
Shoot up in the fast lift, poke the faux gras with toothpick heels. Late lunch at the Coq d’Argent – accept a drink, plan your exit. After two pm the old religion can be smelt – some urban plague myth – even here, halfway to the holding stacks...
On Let’s Dance
I wanted to write about David Bowie’s Let’s Dance album for the Rialto Cold Fire pamphlet, primarily because it features the song ‘Modern Love’, one of my favourite songs to dance to. Never going to fall for (Modern Love) Walks beside me (Modern Love) Walks on by...
“Din of voices”: on some poems in The Rialto 89
Since issue 89 of The Rialto had its “official” launch at Poetry in Aldeburgh recently – with barnstorming readings from Seraphima Kennedy, Richard Osmond and Elisabeth Sennitt Clough, hosted by editor Michael Mackmin – I thought now might be a good time to shine an...
Decompression by William Stephenson
Decompression The induction program’s willow pattern eyes and terracotta lips matched those of the woman I married in my first incarnation. She whispered, Just you and me darling me darling – a glitch, surely, A stutter in the software – so make yourself yourself. She...
SEAN WAI KEUNG
‘i think i want to write about race’ really thats really cool can you do that arent you white o so you decided to go full american then will you send me your poems i think thats a good move for you are they going to be performance poems i thought you hated that sort...
News
Nature and Place 2022 winners announced
We have now received the results of the 2022 Nature and Place Poetry Competition back from Gillian Clarke and are delighted to announce that the winners are: 1st Prize of £1000 – ‘Blame the Fox’ by Jane Lovell 2nd Prize of £500 – ‘Whales in the Forth’ by Cecilia Rose...
The Rialto Does he still write Newsletters? Newsletter December 2021/January 2022
The Rialto 97 is printed and subscribers’ copies should have arrived. There’s been a long gap. I suspect that I might have found it difficult to return to the routine of reading submissions, having had a break from doing so while Degna was compiling No. 96. I also...
The Rialto issue 96, It’s not a war, it’s poetry
The Rialto’s successful Editor Development Programme brought several new editors into the fold under the tutelage of long standing Editor Michael Mackmin, and now three of them are to have free rein over their own issues thanks to further ACE funding. First up, is...
BLOGS
Pamphlet competition shortlist announced
We are very pleased to announce that the Shortlisted Titles for the 2020 Rialto Pamphlet Competition are, in no particular order, For The Apocalypse Team, Trombone, Hello, Before After, Queerfella, Fridges, Shit Happens, The Sushi Chef’s Wife, The Presence of Absence,...
WORDSWORTH, NATURE, ETC.
Had he lived William Wordsworth would have been 250 years old this April (April 7th.,). Celebrations were planned, particularly in Grasmere, Cumbria, home of the excellent Wordsworth Trust. I’m thinking that actual celebrations will not now take place, so here is a...
Summer 2019
‘I think this is a really good time for poetry. If anybody ever thought poetry was a luxury, that’s gone. Poetry is a necessary remedy to a lot of the darkness we are subject to.’ Tracy K Smith, USA Poet Laureate, The Observer 30.06.19 The Rialto No. 92 is now out in...
HOME (FOR A MONTH) IN GRASMERE
In March this year it was my great fortune to stay in Grasmere with the Wordsworth Trust as their poet in residence. The reach of the Trust is huge and I would urge anyone who doesn’t know about them to find out: https://wordsworth.org.uk/ The brief for the residency...
Magic in the reeds
Magic in the reeds: A day at Wicken Fen with Professor Nick Davies by Alexandra Davis “And I …will … Show thee a jay’s nest, and instruct thee how To snare the nimble marmoset. I’ll bring thee To clustering filberts, and sometimes I’ll...
NATURE AND PLACE 2
It takes a lot of work to organise and administer a poetry competition and quite simply we wouldn’t be able to run it if we didn’t have help from volunteers. This year our help comes from undergraduates on the UEA Literature and Creative Writing courses. We invited...
About the rialto
WELCOME
Welcome to the website for The Rialto, where you can find out who we are and what we do, read poems from the magazine, and connect up with our social media pages. You can buy subscriptions, single copies, pamphlets and books. You can learn how to submit your poetry for possible publication, and you can read articles and blogs by the editors, poets and guest writers.
The Rialto magazine is edited by Michael Mackmin working with Rishi Dastidar, Edward Doegar, Will Harris and Degna Stone, who are graduates of our Editor Development Programme.
We’d like to say thank you to our loyal subscribers and to the Arts Council of England whose support and encouragement over years have made possible The Rialto. We invite you, reader, to join the team: help make poetry happen by subscribing now.
THE MAGAZINE
The founding editors, Michael among them, believed in a ‘Republic of Poetry’, an inclusive and diverse world of poetry, one that was open to experiment in form and content. We strive to keep this vision alive.
The magazine appears three times a year and each issue, with its spacious A4 pages, has fifty or so poems, an editorial and occasional, commissioned, prose pieces. Most of the space is occupied by the best new poems we can find, all wrapped up in our famously vibrant beautiful covers.
The Rialto has been called ‘Simply the best’ by Carol Ann Duffy and ‘A terrific magazine’ by Seamus Heaney.
BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS
At the start of the new millennium The Rialto published a short run of first collections. In 2005 we turned our energy to publishing pamphlets and began our Bridge Pamphlets list. These have so far been by poets who we’ve asked to submit work. We also run a poetry pamphlet competition which has become a fixture of how we discover new work. Oh, and we haven’t forgotten about first collections – we launched Dean Parkin’s The Swan Machine at last autumn’s Aldeburgh Poetry Festival, and published Matt Howard’s award winning Gall in 2018.
Laura Scott’s pamphlet What I Saw won the Michael Marks Award in 2014, and several of our first collections are winners of major awards.
“The Rialto is the poetry magazine to read – publishing poems that are formally inventive and alive to the ‘here and now’ of the world, but always with a commitment to the humane and compassionate qualities I believe the best poetry has. It has led the way in nurturing new talent.”
“The magazine is consistently one of, if not the best spotter of emerging talent in the UK – as a writer you know that you have arrived if one of your poems goes in. It’s more than an imprimatur of quality – it’s a rite of passage.”
