A new, monthly poetry magazine that aims to include a strong focus on live performance will be launched next month. Lunar Poetry’s Paul McMenemy said: “The idea behind the mag is to provide something cheap and regular – something for people who find contemporary poetry a difficult world to enter, as well as anyone who is already interested in good modern poetry and writing about it.”

He added: “We think it is important to cover live poetry, as most magazines ignore it at the moment, but it is where a lot of the most exciting things in poetry are happening – this is also why we will be featuring audio and video performances – because poetry is not only something which happens on a page.”

McMenemy said he believed most poetry magazines were “fairly expensive, and come out at wide intervals (quarterly, biannually, etc.) which make them hard to keep track off”. Lunar Poetry will cost £3 for the paper copy (an A5 booklet of around 80 pages), and will be available in a variety of e-formats on a pay-what-you-like basis. As well as printed poetry, the magazine will include a link to a web page where readers will be able to listen to mp3s of poets reading their work, and possibly videos as well.

He added: “The magazine will include poems (obviously), including poems written for our two themed briefs, Bad News to Verse (topical poetry) and our changing monthly brief (which for Issue 1 is “What is Lunar Poetry?”). Also, feature articles – the main feature for issue 1 will be an article on spoken word past and present, featuring interviews with a number of well-known spoken word poets.

“There will also be a couple of other regular prose features – each month one of the poems in the magazine will be analysed by three established poets (Claire Trévien, David Clarke and Wynn Wheldon, for the first issue) looking at why and how the poem works; we will also have a regular article on an important but not necessarily well-known collection from the past – in the first issue it will be Douglas Dunn’s Terry Street. Finally, we will have a number of reviews of pamphlets, full collections, anthologies, live events and anything else poetry-related which comes our way – we will also be featuring some reviews on our website (the first one, of Utter!’s Spoken Word History night on 24 June is already online).”

The paper edition of the magazine will be available to buy online, in some shops,, and at Lunar’s launch events. Three are confirmed so far: in the Amersham Arms, New Cross, London on Sunday, 3 August; Bar Loco, Newcastle, Thursday, 7 August; and Blackfriars, Glasgow, Sunday, 10 August. Entry to the Glasgow and London gigs will cost £5 and include a copy of the magazine (doors open 7.30pm), and tickets to the London event can be bought in advance here. The Newcastle event will be free to attend, and copies of the magazine will be on sale at the usual £3 price.

The magazine’s email address is editor@lunarpoetry.co.uk. Lunar says it accepts submissions and inquiries about reviewing and writing articles all year round.