In October 1958, aged 19, he travelled to Italy to meet him, and as a result of this visit, decided to become an editor, launching his magazine Agenda, in January 1959.
Initially, Agenda continued Pound's economic and political ideas at the time of composing Thrones (1959).
However, after a year of experimenting, Cookson reoriented his magazine towards contemporary poetry, and stayed faithful to this direction until his death in 2003.
Cookson dedicated whole issues of Agenda to key British poets such as David Jones, Geoffrey Hill, Thom Gunn and Basil Bunting, building reference points for their poetry.
In addition to a final redaction of "Vestiges and Versions", the issue contains biographical sketches by Edmund Gray and Martin Dodsworth.