‘My face was not the most beautiful / but any person was entitled to think it was / and what terrifying pleasure in that.’
Nina Reljić’s winning poem in this year’s Poetry Prize.
Review | A Very British Revolt by John Merrick
‘Britain, whoever is in power, is a small-c conservative place.’
John Merrick on the 1926 General Strike.
Essay | A 2026 Survey of Poets
Sixty-four years on from the original survey, The London Magazine speaks to fifteen poets, including Jorie Graham, Don Paterson, A. E. Stallings and more, about the state of contemporary poetry.
June / July 2026 Issue
For digital subscribers, access the June / July 2026 issue here, including the winning poems from this year’s Poetry Prize, as well as new work by Nick Laird and Lawrence Osborne, and The London Magazine’s 2026 Survey of Poets with responses from Jorie Graham, Don Paterson, A. E. Stallings and more.
Essay | Imaging the Invisible by Oriol Ponsatí-Murlà
‘When something like this happens then the image isn’t merely a banal transposition of reality. It creates a certain reality, of a very particular character, because it has the capacity to go beyond itself. To transcend itself.’
Oriol Ponsatí-Murlà on the advent of photography and documenting the dead.
Fiction | On Not Knowing English by Sergi Pàmies
‘I distract myself with the idea that human beings can be divided into two categories: those who wait, and those who make others wait. If forced to, I’d describe myself as one of those who wait.’
Short fiction by Sergi Pàmies.
Essay | Flags Made in China by Marina Garcés
‘If we take a closer look at them, flags don’t express the eternal identity of nations but the power relations upon which today’s nation states have been constructed and consolidated.’
Marina Garcés on Catalan flags and nation states.
Essay | Ophrys, or Of Seduction by Alicia Kopf
‘Modern biology strengthens what Darwin already noted: nature experiments constantly with sex and gender, without being reduced to any single pattern.’
Alicia Kopf on Darwin, sexual selection and orchids.
Protected: Catalan Issue 2026
This content is password-protected. To view it, please enter the password below. Password:
Review | Under Laboratory Conditions by Joseph Williams
‘History in Minor Black Figures is not so much a ‘vaster social context’ than something to be looked at, discussed and then turned away from. Like a painting, or a petri dish.’
Joseph Williams reviews Brandon Taylor’s Minor Black Figures.
Essay | Inside the Vanishing Point by Zoe Guttenplan
‘It seems as though we have gone through the painting and are living inside the vanishing point: creating the means of our own self-effacement, using them, bemoaning their existence and continuing to use them anyway.’
Zoe Guttenplan on invisible media, AI and the age of sameness.
Fiction | Dogelon Mars by Adrian Nathan West
‘In his own life, money had been nearly but never wholly absent, manifested in quantities of just-barely- and almost-enough.’
Short fiction by Adrian Nathan West.
Poetry | Time Management by Nasim Luczaj
‘So what that it was okay to call it / a day? Does delight ever feel done? And hell / will come, whether or not you schedule it.’
New poetry by Nasim Luczaj.
Poetry | The Erymanthian Boar by Rachel Curzon
‘We’re going now, I said, // to say something definite. / And when the car began its song / the street sang it back, // all lamentation.’
New poetry by Rachel Curzon.
Poetry | Let’s Dive In by Daniel Addercouth
‘I don’t want to exaggerate, / but I could be happy anywhere. Together, / our losses make a home, wouldn’t you say?’
New poetry by Daniel Addercouth.
Essay | 41 Numbered Paragraphs About Dementia and Fiction by Caleb Klaces
‘The words of reassurance assume something like this: David remains David, whatever happens, as long as someone remembers who he was. But I kept asking myself: When was he who he really was? When exactly was that? And what’s to say that it is not right now?’
Caleb Klaces on dementia and fiction.
Review | Famous Heaney by Jack Barron
‘Both his Poems and Letters, in different registers, show a private poet courting lyric publicity and cultivating a voice of guarded ambiguity: memorable, yes, but sacrificing true risk for renown.’
Jack Barron reviews Seamus Heaney’s collected Poems and Letters.
Fiction | Black Cake by Renesha Dhanraj
‘Sitting across the ornate coffee table from my husband, I felt as if I was seeing him for the first time. I told him so, somewhat jokingly, but mainly to crush the silence that had overtaken us, and was about to add, At least we can finally catch our breath, eh? but then I was overcome by the feeling of telling a lie, so I kept the rest to myself.’
Winner of The London Magazine Short Story Prize 2025.
Protected: December / January Issue 2026
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
Review | Most Men Are Losers by Guy Stagg
‘While toxic figures with millions of online followers dominate the cultural conversation about masculinity, Szalay’s novels offer a more honest account of male experience. In short, most men are losers.’
Guy Stagg reviews David Szalay’s Booker-shortlisted novel, Flesh.
Essay | The Aesthetic Life by Zsófia Paulikovics
‘Several broadly millennial acquaintances confess that reading the book made them feel a sort of sickening recognition.’
Zsófia Paulikovics on Perfection and Allegro Pastel.
Essay | No Designated Venue: An Oral History of London’s Music and Poetry Scenes
Yasmina Snyder spoke to writers, poets, musicians and event organisers based in London about the connections between live music and poetry, and the spaces that host them.
Essay | Why Magazines Fail by Tristram Fane Saunders
‘There’s big trouble in the world of little magazines. In the last two years, an alarming number have vanished into that second-hand bookshop in the sky. Each leaves the world a little quieter, a little poorer.’
Tristram Fane Saunders on ‘little magazines’.