‘Ambit is a great place to discover the new rising stars’
For 60 years Ambit Magazine has been celebrating poetry, art and fiction. On National Poetry Day, its editor Briony Bax reflects on its sometimes controversial history
National Poetry Day celebrates its 25th anniversary today but I’d like to celebrate an even older anniversary – this year Ambit Magazine turns 60, and we have spent the year celebrating our history of discovering great writers, artists and poets for six decades. We have consistently showcased both emerging writers alongside those who are internationally recognised.
Ambit has long been known for its eclectic tastes in poetry, representing some of the finest English language poets from their earliest poems. The likes of Edwin Brock, Stevie Smith, Peter Porter, Fleur Adcock, Peter Redgrove, Alan Brownjohn, Carol Ann Duffy, Emily Berry, Declan Ryan and Liz Berry have frequently been featured, and it is a great place to discover the new rising stars.
To go back to the beginning, in 1959 a young medical doctor called Martin Bax, grandson of Ernest Belfort Bax, a socialist writer and member of the Fabian society, founded Ambit Magazine. The inspiration came to him in the Victoria and Albert Museum where he saw displayed copies of Rhythm Magazine which had been started by John Middleton Murry and Katherine Mansfield in 1911. The magazine published works by new young artists such as Miro and Picasso. It featured a naked woman on the front and was considered a very avantgarde publication.
Rhythm Magazine had soon gone bankrupt because of the costs involved in making blocks for printing. In 1959, litho printing was being developed so Dr Bax had the idea that he could make a poetry and art magazine that would be cheaper to print. As a pediatrician he started to publish medical journals at the Lavenham Press in Suffolk and because of the business he was bringing them, Lavenham agreed to print his new poetry magazine on credit.
Martin recruited the artist Michael Foreman as the art editor, a job which he would hold for the next 52 years unpaid, like all senior editors in Ambit’s history. Mike and Martin would regularly meet at the Chelsea Arts Club, around the corner from the hospital where Martin was based, and over long lunches planned and created the content for quarterly Ambits. Martin loved to shock and produce provocative work at a time when a huge cultural shift was happening and he and Mike gathered a team around them: Edwin Brock, Peter Porter, Eduardo Paolozzi and JG Ballard who all contributed to the editorial side of running the magazine. The advantage of meeting at the Chelsea Arts Club was that they could persuade artists they ran into to send work in and so David Hockney, Peter Blake and Ralph Steadman all became contributors to Ambit. Geoff Nicholson and Carol Ann Duffy, the future British Poet Laureate, later joined the team.
Another person who was an Ambit regular was a stripper called Euphoria Bliss who used to accompany Martin on readings. A famous one was a lunchtime reading at Kingston Polytechnic where she came dressed in a long black cloak. When it was time for her reading, she divested herself of the cloak and read completely naked. Needless to say, Ambit was not invited back.
The Arts Council of England was an early supporter of Ambit and provided many small grants to help Martin pay the contributors and the printers. In 1967, at a time when JG Ballard was an active fiction editor, he and Martin forged a plan to present a special sex issue and then later that year they launched the competition for the best story written under the influence of drugs. The Arts Council were outraged and in April 1968 withdrew their support of Ambit. The winner of the competition was Ann Quin who was taking the contraceptive pill at the time of writing her piece.
In 2013 Martin was due to retire and his family approached me to take over the role of editor. As a poet I had already been published in Ambit and had also run various businesses and charities in the USA and was returning to live in London. Married to one of Martin’s second cousins and the daughter of the late poet Adrian Mitchell, I took over the reins from issue 214 and launched with a wonderful painting by Doug Argue on the cover. My poetry editors were Declan Ryan and Liz Berry, Kate Pemberton who had managed the magazine for many years took on the role of fiction editor, and the art was taken over, on the retirement of Mike Forman, by Olivia Bax and Jean-philippe Dordolo.
From the start we wanted to move the magazine away from the ‘slap and tickle’ tastes of the previous editors to concentrate on finding new voices and visuals. Ralf Webb and George Jackson worked as poetry interns before becoming co-poetry editors. The offices of Ambit are based in North Norfolk in a tiny coastal village and all editorial staff work remotely. In fact, the current poetry editor, André Naffissahely, lives in Los Angeles.
To celebrate its 60th birthday Ambit Magazine has produced a fabulous anthology of the past decades with every cover of the magazine as thumbnails on the front. It is encased in a beautiful slip-cover with die cut lettering. With the help of an Arts Council Grant and a contribution from the printers, Ambit has been on the road taking its show ‘Ambit – a potted history’ to Norwich, Liverpool, London, Edinburgh, Manchester and Aldeburgh Poetry Festival.
Poets who have participated in these readings are Anthony Thwaite, Alan Brownjohn, George Szirtes, Kevin Crossleyholland, Fleur Adcock, Mary Jean Chan, Julian Stannard, André Naffis-sahely, Declan Ryan, Andrew Mcmillan, Liz Berry, Niall Campbell (a poet from South Uist, whose new collection Noctuary (Bloodaxe) is shortlisted for 2019’s Forward Poetry Prize for Best Collection), Romalyn Ante, Tony Dash, Brian Wake, Jennifer Lee-tsai, Maryann Havasi, Yvonne Reddick and Chris Mccabe. The events have reflected the amazing history of Ambit and its desire to celebrate the bright future of the written (and spoken) word up and down the land.
Ambit recently announced the winners of their annual poetry competition and at 60, Ambit’s passion for thrilling work is fiercer than ever so it feels only right that the theme for the diamond anniversary year was ‘Wild’. Poets responded to the ‘Wild’ theme in all sorts of wonderful ways. Judge, Liz Berry read poems about nature – back gardens to vast bays, moors to mountains – and poems which spoke of the wildness within us, wildness of the body and of the mind, wildness in love and grief. There were many poems which worked with myth and folklore, the wild threads which run through our everyday stories. The winners Yvonne Reddick, Jane Lovell and Ella Duffy will be published in issue 238 of Ambit (out 24 October). Liz Berry said of Yvonne Reddick’s winning poem In the Burning Season, “I was captivated by this wild fiery folkloric poem. I wished it was mine!”
To mark National Poetry Day and to continue to both support emerging talent and help poetry reach new audiences Ambit is sponsoring two young poets, Jennifer Lee Tsai and Taher Adel, with a poetry residency in the Norfolk town of Wells-nextthe-sea. The poets will be teaching slam poetry at the local secondary school and presenting a ‘Strictly Speaking’ event where members of the community are invited to come and speak their favourite verse, or poetry they have written. I look forward hopefully to another 60 years of supporting and encouraging new fiction writers, poets and artists and very much hope you will join me.
In 1967, JG Ballard and Martin Bax launched the competition for the best story written under the influence of drugs
Ambit runs an open submission process where the editors look at everything that is sent in and gives no preference to well-known writers over the newest artistic talents.
It is available through subscription, in selected bookshops, and in libraries worldwide. Ambit is a registered charity in the UK and has a commitment to support and encourage new writers, poets and artists. To subscribe or become an Ambit Friend or Angel please go to www.ambitmagazine.co.uk/ support
● To purchase a copy of Ambit’s special 60th birthday edition (£20) featuring work from Eduardo Paolozzi, David Hockney, Ralph Steadman, Adrian Henri, Carol Ann Duffy, Deborah Levy, William Boroughs and JG Ballard go to www.ambit magazine. co.uk You can also purchase back issues from this site. A subscription costs £29.99 per year for four issues.