Notice: Poetry Book Launch Supports Real Change Charity At The Spike

Published on: 25 Nov, 2019
Updated on: 25 Nov, 2019

When poet Susie Campbell visited Guildford’s Spike for a Christmas Day Morning Tour last year, she was so moved that she put pen to paper and wrote a few poems.

On Friday, December 6, from 7pm to 9pm, she will be launching her new chapbook of poems and photographs, ‘I return to you’, at the Spike Heritage Centre in Warren Road.

In addition, the ‘At the Edge of Town’ event will be a celebration of chapbook poetry, featuring three other local poets whose chapbooks have been published – Lucy Furlong, Astra Papachristodoulou and Julia Rose Lewis, who live in or near Guildford.

This will be an opportunity to hear Susie, Lucy, Astra and Julia read together as chapbook poets. Chapbooks were traditionally pocket-sized pamphlets sold by travelling chapmen for a few pennies to ordinary people hungry for stories, poems and gossip. Some of that tradition lingers on in the poems and chapbooks celebrated at this event.

All proceeds from the sale of Susie’s book will be donated to Guildford-based Real Change, a charity supporting people who are homeless by paying for items they need to build lives away from the streets – things like a deposit for a home, a training course, or clothes for a job interview. A suggested donation of £5 to Real Change may be made on the night.

Tickets for the event are free, but must be reserved in advance on www.eventbrite.com/e/at-the-edge-of-townchapbook-poetry-at-the-guildford-spike-tickets-71395127749.

For more information about Real Change, visit www.realchangeguildford.co.uk.