New Left Review I/6, November-December 1960

Graham Martin

Stand: War Poets

writing inNLR 5, Raymond Williams proposed a solution to an old problem, “the plight of the Little Magazines”. He suggests that positive intervention (to replace jaded liberal passive lamentation) into the publishing and distribution of books and magazines is the only effective way to counter “the pressure to reduce publications to a limited number of standard items, easily sold in quantity” i.e. to widen the channels of communication, multiply the number of genuine, as distinct from marginal, variant voices in our culture. The current issue of the literary magazine Stand (IV-3), edited from Leeds by Jon Silkin, is a case in point. Here is an independent “little magazine”, pleasant in appearance and layout, without subsidy of any kind, edited, administered, and distributed by volunteer enthusiasts, carrying very little advertising, and yet still able to pay its contributors. Founded in 1952, the editor intends the journal to contribute to the contemporary discussion and definition of humanist values. It deserves very general support, and in a proper state of affairs would certainly get it without special plugging here.

’My institution subscribes to NLR, why can't I access this article?’