Cordite Press Inc. was established by Adrian Wiggins and Peter Minter in 1997 and in the same year the first issue of Cordite Poetry Review appeared in print.

A total of six issues were published in a broadsheet format (see our archives for details of how to access PDFs of these issues online), with the 6th (a double issue, 6&7), available in both print and electronic formats and published in 2000.

Since 2001, Cordite has appeared exclusively online. This page outlines a brief history of Cordite from its inception to the present day.

01-05: The Broadsheet Years (1997-2000)

Cordite Poetry Review began as a print journal, with a total of six issues appearing in broadsheet format between 1997 and 2000. Issues 1 through to 5 have been archived as PDFs and are available for download below. You may also need to download Adobe Acrobat in order to open these files. Read more about Cordite’s history here.

06-10: Ragged Glory (2000-2002)

One thing that remained constant throughout Cordite’s transition from print to screen was, obviously, change. Issues #6&7 were published both in print and online for the first (and so far only) time in Cordite Poetry Review’s history, making 2000 a doubly interesting crossover point between the magazine’s broadshee