Editor Interview: The Aftershock Review

Poetry after trauma

We admire publications that take poetry seriously without narrowing what it can be. These include 14 Poems, The Rialto, Only Poems, Modern Poetry in Translation, Poetry London, Magma, Poetry Wales, The New Yorker. These are places where craft, risk, and thought coexist, and where poems are trusted to do complex work. Most of all, though, we want to offer a new place for poetry - value for money, pure poetry without reviews, and so far over two issues we have published over 100 poets.

We are shaped by the poets we publish. Recent contributors span from award-winners to new poets. Issues one and two have featured the likes of Hugo Williams, Helen Ivory, Victoria Chang, Lydia Unsworth, Pascale Petit, Gwyneth Lewis, Joseph Fasano, Chen Chen, Inua Ellams, John McCullough, Clare Shaw, Jackie Hagan, Rishi Dastidar, Nuala Watt, Katy Evans-Bush, Gregory Woods, Karan Chambers, and Sam Riviere. We are drawn to writers working with pressure, consequence, and formal invention - poets who understand that lyric intensity and craft are inseparable.

The Aftershock Review is survivor-led and trauma-informed, but rigorously craft-led. We do not publish confession for its own sake, or poems that trade complexity for immediacy. We publish work made after catastrophe: poems that reckon with aftermath through structure, restraint, music, and emotional intelligence. 'A jolt to the mainstream' The Guardian called us.

The poetry matters more than everything else. Read the magazine. Send the work that surprises you, that still aches, that has been fully made. Don’t explain the poem. Let the language carry the weight. Don't presume we are looking for work similar to what we have already published - we want to be surprised.

We love surprises. We want to feel. We want ache. We want life after catastrophe.
The ideal submission is precise, emotionally earned, and alert at the line level. It trusts implication over declaration and allows silence and structure to do real work. The poem should feel necessary, not merely competent or topical.

Many assume we want rawness without refinement, or trauma presented as proof. We don’t. We are interested in poems where experience has been shaped, tested, and held in language. Another common misconception is that extensive contextual framing helps, but it rarely does.

A short cover letter is important to frame work. Publication credits do not influence our decisions. The poem is the only thing under consideration. Please be courteous and remember that on the other end of the line is a human being.

Every submission receives genuine attention. While it’s often possible to tell early when a poem isn’t right for us, we do not skim.

Shortlisted poems are discussed collectively and considered in relation to the architecture of the issue as a whole. We think carefully about pacing, sequence, and how poems speak to one another across sections.

Reading submissions happens in fragments: early mornings, late nights, between design work, commissioning, access planning, correspondence, and public-facing projects. Editing is not a separate task but part of a larger ecology of care, attention, and making space for poems to land properly.

We offer proportionate, thoughtful editorial support—sometimes minimal, sometimes more involved—focused on clarity, structure, and line integrity. This may include substantive or line edits, followed by copy editing and proofreading. Authors always approve final changes.

Yes. Where eligible, we actively nominate work for major UK and international prizes. We recently nominated poets for the Pushcart Prize.

The Aftershock Review is supported by Arts Council England, earned income from sales, partnerships, and personal investment. Our funding model prioritises access, fair payment, and sustainability over growth for its own sake. In September 2025 we received a T. S. Eliot Foundation grant. My (Max) role takes up most days and I work long hours to sustain this project. Please understand that, though we are lucky to get funding, we have produced something in a short time that has had huge impact, and that comes from sustained, deliberate, and - crucially - hard work.

We promote work through social platforms, Substack, press coverage, live events, and large-scale public interventions, including billboard campaigns. Our aim is not simply visibility, but resonance, ensuring poems live beyond the page. We have in a short period of time created a community, an instagram presence and large-scale national disruption of literature.