Coming soon!
Acumen 114 – January 2026
Order now for dispatch mid January: Acumen 114 looks both back and forward, marking the start of 2026 through a poetic centenary and contemporary reflections. The issue takes as one of its touchstones Marina Tsvetaeva’s Krysolov (The Ratcatcher), first published a century ago, with Peter Eagles examining the demands and possibilities of translating such a work – and what translation continues to offer poetry as an act of invention and respect. There is a reassessment of Valentine Ackland by Fred Beake, restoring her presence and significance within twentieth-century British poetry. A new interview with Philip Gross reflects on water, place and the shaping of a poetic life. Alongside these features are new poems and translations from poets writing across the world, including Elizabeth Barton, David Punter, Pauline Hawkesworth, Michael Henry, Shanta Acharya, Clive Watkins, Pippa Little, Colin Pink, Doreen Hinchliffe, Kate Hendry, Daljit Nagra, Adrienne Christian, Eugene O’Hare, Dinah Livingstone, Simon Haines, and many more. Reviews of recent collections, together with a tribute to John Lucas, consider the continuing vitality of poetry and its communities. The issue offers a thoughtful meeting-place for poetry, history and inspiration.
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. 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. And Plato remarked, ‘Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history’.
I’ll 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 times give you magical things that your senses can sharpen to find, especially through the troubled world that often surrounds us. Thank you for supporting Acumen.
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.
Christine McNeill
Christine McNeill has seven collections of poetry. A selection of translated German verse, ‘Across a Sheet of Paper’, was published by Shoestring Press in 2022. With Patricia McCarthy she has translated Rilke’s The ‘Book of Hours’ (Agenda Editions). She also translated Rilke’s poem’cycle ‘The Life of the Virgin Mary’ (Dedalus Press). Her work has appeared widely in magazines and journals over the last three decades. This poem is from Acumen 113.
Michael Gittins
Born 1937 in New Zealand and early life in Fiji; linguist and language-teacher, with experience in four countries, and later teacher-trainer, Michael Gittins is now retired in Surrey. A little experimentation with poetic forms (pastiches, haikus) when a student. Started translating German poems many years later as a hobby. Persuaded to submit some translations to Acumen in 2019 and delighted to receive further acceptances since 2020. This poem is from Acumen 113.
Sreeja Naskar
Sreeja Naskar is a young poet based in India. Her work has appeared in Poems India, Crowstep Journal, ONE ART, Ink Sweat and Tears, Delta Poetry Review, The Chakkar, Trace Fossils Review, and elsewhere. She believes in the power of language to unearth what lingers beneath silence.
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
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.
Advertise with Acumen
Our journals carry display advertising reaching key customers at attractive rates. Leading institutions and libraries throughout the world subscribe to our journals and each one of these copies is referred to again and again, ensuring your message is constantly reinforced. Your advertisement has greater prominence and visibility through the high editorial to advertisement ratio, increasing the impact of your brand.
Going digital? No problem, advertise on our website where we have a growing presence online. Read more