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Shearsman poetry magazine has just celebrated its thirtieth birthday. Tony Frazer has steered it since 1981 and last night’s reading launching double issue 87 and 88 featured among the six readers some who were there from the beginning and some first published in the current issue. The poets: Martin Anderson, Isobel Armstrong, Anthony Barnett, Amy Evans, Lee Harwood and John Mateer were all good to hear. Martin Anderson’s copy of issue 1 (Tony doesn’t have a copy) is shown above with the latest. As contributors go I’m a relative youngster, having first appeared in the journal in 2001. I had written a longish poem called ‘Louvres’ and had sent a copy to Gael Turnbull for his perusal. As he had so often done for other writers in the past, Gael sent my piece on to a magazine – in this case Shearsman. Tony published the entire piece, taking up some two-thirds of the issue.