Current issue!
Acumen 113 – September 2025
Acumen 113 showcases poetry from across the UK, New Zealand, the USA, Canada and Europe, with new work by John Greening, Jan FitzGerald, Rosie Jackson, Gill McEvoy, Patrick Osada, Edmund Prestwich, Martin Reed, Jeremy Robson and Penelope Shuttle among many others. The poems open windows onto memory, resilience, love, grief, history and the natural world and much more, with unexpected turns of thought. Duncan Forbes examines Forms and Freedoms, Peter Eagles commemorates the centenary of Sergey Esenin, and Myra Schneider, in interview with David Perman, reflects on the influences, collaborations and discipline that sustain her writing. Translations of Joachim Ringelnatz and Victor Hugo appear alongside reviews of the latest poetry books and spirited reader responses, making this issue a vibrant exchange between established and emerging poets across continents.
An annual subscription to the Acumen Journal covers 3 issues packed with great poetry, plus stimulating reviews and essays. It represents great value for money for either yourself or as a thoughtful gift for a poetry-lover.
Editorial
Welcome to Acumen. Do check out our pages and great poems.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT OF ACUMEN. And a special thank you to those of you who have renewed your subscriptions and have added a donation, so that we can keep the price lower. If you haven’t renewed your subscription for Acumen, please do so here.
Thank you to everyone submitting poems and prose. Acumen has been experiencing a wonderful increase in submissions lately, and we’re grateful for the interest in our magazine. Thanks for your patience while everything is carefully reviewed. Please remember we do not accept simultaneous submissions, but we consider postal and electronic submissions. We do, however, encourage contributors to carefully review our submission guidelines to ensure their work aligns with what we publish – poetry and prose on poetry-related topics, and not short stories. To prepare your submission and for more information please see here.
We’re excited to share the latest Acumen with you, though we must apologise for recent postage issues. Unfortunately, some issues of Acumen have disappeared in Royal Mail. If you’ve experienced any delays or problems, please do let us know. Despite this, we’re committed to ensuring that everyone can enjoy the exceptional work featured in the latest edition. PDF copies are available, plus a very small number of printed copies which we are sending to those whose copies have gone astray. Please contact the Acumen editor for more information.
Thank you for your continued interest in Acumen and the world of poetry. As Emily Dickinson said, ‘I dwell in possibility’ – and it is through your support that we continue to explore the endless possibilities of poetry.
I end with lines that have been attributed to Yeats, but more likely originated from English author and playwright, Eden Phillpotts: ‘The universe is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.’ I hope that the coming months give you magical things that your senses can sharpen to find, especially through the troubled world that often surrounds us.
Guest Poems and Young Poets
Acumen’s aim is to be wide-ranging, publishing contemporary poets both known and unknown, relying on the strength of the poetry rather than the name behind it.
Selected poems from each issue are posted on the website as guest poems for the week. We add photographs and very short biographies – a thing we don’t do in the magazine, preferring at that stage to let the poems speak for themselves.
Jeremy Robson
Described by ‘The Times’ as ‘a champion of poetry’, Jeremy Robson instigated and participated in the large-scale ‘Poetry and Jazz’ in Concert events of which there have been some 350 over the years, featuring many leading poets and musicians. For many years ‘The Tribune’ poetry critic , he has edited a number of anthologies, including ‘The Young British Poet’s for Chatto and, with Dannie Abse, a series of paperback anthologies for Corgi. He founded and ran Robson Books for some forty years. The latest of his many books of poetry are ‘Chagall’s Moon’, ‘The Heartless Traffic’, ‘Subject Matters’, and ‘Blues in the Park’, all with Smokestack Books. Biteback published his memoir, ‘Under Cover: A Poet’s Life in Publishing’. He and his wife Carole live in London. This poem is from Acumen 113.
Nicki Griffin
Nicki Griffin lives in East Clare, Ireland. Her debut collection of poetry, ‘Unbelonging’, was published by Salmon Poetry in 2013 and was shortlisted for the Shine/Strong Award 2014 for best debut collection. ‘The Skipper & Her Mate’ (non-fiction) was published by New Island in 2013. ‘Crossing Places’, her second collection of poetry, was published by Salmon Poetry in 2017. A third collection, ‘The Dark & the Light’, is forthcoming. She was awarded a Literature Bursary Award by the Arts Council in 2012. She has been published in a wide variety of anthologies and journals and was a founding editor of poetry journal Skylight 47. She hosts a monthly poetry evening in East Clare. This poem is from Acumen 114.
Maya Elphick
Maya Elphick is a poet based in Norfolk. A graduate from the University of East Anglia, her poetry has been commissioned by BBC Radio and several nonprofit charities across the east of England. You can follow her on Instagram @mayarchival
Lola Dekhuijzen
Lola Dekhuijzen is a poet from Amsterdam. She writes about intimacy, identity, and just the strangeness of things, really. Her work has appeared in Ink, Sweat & Tears – https://inksweatandtears.co.uk/lola-dekhuijzen/ You can find her on Instagram: @loladekhuijzen.
We love to publish new and established writers, in our journal and/or on our website and we are proud to have discovered many new voices.
We welcome unpublished poems, translations of poems, articles and debate on poetry covering a wide variety of topics and with different writing styles.
Find out how to submit your poems.
Poetry and Prose
Books and publications
We have a range of quality poetry publications for sale which we hope you will enjoy reading including hardbacks, paperbacks, pamphlets and single issues of the journal.
Electrifying Announcement!
Acumen is among the longest-running literary magazines today.
Patricia Oxley started Acumen in 1985 armed with only an electric typewriter, and without subscribers or contributions. Since then it has grown to one of the country’s leading literary journals.
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