Call for submission – Magma 91, In the Flesh

Editors:  Aoife Lyall and Victoria Kennefick

Closing date: 31 July 2024.

Submissions for ‘In the Flesh' is open from 1 July 2024.
 

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In the Flesh

In the Flesh: a phrase that has many connotations: those of being born, those of being in and experiencing your own body as it ages and changes. 

In the Flesh speaks to health and illness, life, death, recovery and regeneration, and in and amongst all of that, food – that first mouthful of a ripe peach, the pulling apart of slow-cooked meat – the rites and rituals that surround how we grow, share and consume our food, be that on our own, with friends and family, with lovers, in private, in public spaces.  

It also speaks to the need we have to connect with others physically, and invites considerations of the differences between virtual and physical relationships; how they can be nurtured and exploited, built and sundered. And of the senses we use to engage with and understand the world around us.

In the Flesh pertains to the current ecologia disaster, namely the plastics that are making their way from our hands, into our seas, into our food and back into our bodies. 

It considers injuries and traumas inflicted on the body and physical and emotional scars the flesh carries around with it, and from there, the physical effects of mental illness, such as depression, PTSD, and  bereavement, among others. But also to the experience of joy, love, ecstasy and pleasure in all their guises. 

We’re only delighted to be editing this issue and welcome writing that explores these many concerns, and more, grappling with the complexities, realities and joys of being embodied.

What a thing is a body! What a thing to be In the Flesh!

Aoife Lyall & Victoria Kennefick

Editors Magma 91: In the Flesh

HOW TO SUBMIT 

• The submissions window for ‘In the Flesh' is open 1st – 31st July 2024
• We welcome poems that have not been previously published in print, online, or broadcast.
• We accept simultaneous submissions, but please withdraw your submission or contact us if it is accepted for publication somewhere else first.
• You may submit up to 4 previously unpublished poems: ONLINE via Submittable in a single Word or PDF document, OR BY POST to Magma 91 Submissions, 23 Pine Walk, Carshalton, SM5 4ES. Postal submissions are accepted from the UK and Ireland only. Postal submissions are not acknowledged until a decision is made.

THE EDITORS

Aoife Lyall‘s debut collection, Mother, Nature, was published by Bloodaxe Books in 2021 and shortlisted for the Scottish First Book Award. Her second collection The Day Before generously supported by the National Lottery through Creative Scotland was published by Bloodaxe in 2024. She was awarded an Emerging Scottish Writer residency by Cove Park in 2020 and was twice shortlisted for the Hennessy New Irish Writing Awards. Her poems have also been shortlisted for the Bridport poetry prize, the Wells Festival of Literature Open Poetry Competition and the Jane Martin Poetry Prize. She is reviews editor of Magma Poetry, and has worked as a mentor and curator for the Scottish Poetry Library, the Saltire Society as a judge, and Butcher’s Dog as a guest editor. Her poems have inspired music, film, sculpture and artwork across the UK and Ireland. She lives and works in the Scottish Highlands with her family.

Victoria Kennefick‘s debut collection, Eat or We Both Starve (Carcanet Press, 2021), won the Seamus Heaney First Collection Poetry Prize and the Dalkey Book Festival Emerging Writer of the Year Award. It was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize, the Costa Poetry Book Award, Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry and the Butler Literary Prize. A UCD/Arts Council of Ireland Writer-in-Residence 2023 and Poet-in-Residence at the Yeats Society Sligo 2022–2023, Victoria is now Cork County Council Writer-in-Residence 2024. Her second collection, Egg/Shell (Carcanet Press, 2024) was a PBS Choice for Spring 2024 and BBC Poetry Extra Book of the Month for March.