The 1000 Monkeys – Local Poets Launch The Keystone Anthology

Published on: 6 Jun, 2015
Updated on: 21 Aug, 2015

A book of poems, The Keystone Anthology, will be launched at a free event at Firefly @ The Keystone pub, Portsmouth Road, Guildford, on Monday, June 8, at 7pm.

It is a collection of 121 poems written by 54 poets who have read at the spoken word events hosted in Guildford by Dónall Dempsey .

Dónall Dempsey, poet and co-founder of The 1000 Monkeys

Dónall Dempsey, poet and co-founder of The ,000 Monkeys.

Janice Windle, the book’s editor, is a co-founder of the loose collective called The 1000 Monkeys. She said “The name refers to the saying that an infinite number of monkeys with keyboards, given an infinite span of time, will produce every work of literature ever written.”

The 1000 Monkeys have set themselves the task of promoting and publishing the best they hear, wherever it originates.

This is a very varied anthology with poems by the eminent writer Bernard Kops (who has contributed two new, previously unpublished pieces), Chrys Salt MBE, who was recently decorated in the Queen’s birthday honours for her services to poetry.

Also included are award winners Wendy Klein and Bethany Pope, successful performance poets Steve Pottinger, Robert Garnham, Ash Dickinson and young, emerging poets from Guildford and further afield.

Ash Dickinson – writer, poet and comedy performer.

The criterion for the editor’s choice has been the poems’ quality and accessibility to the general reader. Included are poems about mothers, bikers, fathers, fridges , Canada, politics, children, art, cycling, urban life, birds, landscapes, tragedy, comedy, birth, love and death and everything in between.

The book is dedicated to Richard Jaehme and Firefly @ The Keystone, where visiting and local poets have found a particularly supportive home at the pub’s poetry open mic nights on the first Monday of each month.