Issue 32 of the magazine is edited by Mick Delap. There�s so many poems worth picking out. Henry Shukman�s �Shanty�: �The world outside this room has evaporated / into cloud, and from the cloud / again and again / comes the chime of the church clock, / the hours on fast forward.� There�s more great lines: �This cabin / is the chamber of the shell you sought as a girl, / with an endless inward spiral. / It whispered in your ear, shell to shell.� There are three poems from Clare Pollard. �Mission Beach� and �For my Fianc� are particularly good. The latter opens with: �At first, engaged, unused to jewellery, / I turn the ring like a loose tooth - / lying in bed aware of its touch, like the touch / of a finger to thigh.� These are intimate and personal poems.

Not all the poems in the magazine have a sea theme. H�l�ne Armstrong�s �Remember the Tulips� is reminiscent of Kathleen Jamie�s poem �Daisies� in Jamie's collection, �The Tree House�. David Boll�s �The Enemy in the Attic� describes scary childhood encounters with spiders. Brian Turner�s �Alhazen of Basra� looks back to the physicist Abu Ali Hasan Ibn Al-Haitham who lived one thousand years ago and who made important contributions to science. Christopher James gives us a wonderful image in his poem �Reward�: �Across their laps, sub-machine guns lie in flagrante / like dogs at the end of the day, grinning in their sleep.� Helen Overell�s �Beit Hanoun, Gaza, 19th April 2001� is both beautiful and disturbing: �men stood bone struck / on trampled tank tracks, women dazed / statues in stone staggered nightmare��

Moroccan poet, Rachida Madani, is the Showcased author in this issue. Her poems have been translated by Marilyn Hacker.

It�s impossible to name all the memorable works, but �Concerning Some Pictures� by Tony Curtis, �The Autopsy� by James Sutherland-Smith, Sally Festing�s �The Banks of the Pamba�, Laura Chalar�s �6.15 a.m.�, Vicci Bentley�s �Birth� and Alan Buckley�s �Missing the Point� are just a few.

On the non-fiction side, there�s an article by Mark McGuinness on what the internet has to offer poets; Clare Pollard looks at the Poetry Book Society�s selected or recommended books for this season - Alan Jenkins� collection �A Shorter Life� seems to be a particular book to look out for. There�s an article on the search for the best sea poem, and plenty of other reading too. Magma is not only a high quality magazine, it�s also accessible, and good value for money.

Kara Kellar Bell is a film and media graduate from the West of Scotland, with a passion for European novels, French films, silent cinema, and Brazilian music (everything from Daniela Mercury and other pop stars through to bossa nova). As a writer, she likes to have room to move around creatively, so she�s not located in one genre. She writes realism and also stories of a more fantastic nature, usually grounded to some extent in the real world. She also takes delight in writing across the sexual spectrum, and as a bisexual, considers it important to remind people that things are not always black and white, either/or, in sexuality or in gender. For a selection of Kara�s writing on the Showcase section of this site, click here

© 2005 Laura Hird All rights reserved.