” A super cool project and a wonderful addition to our little town!”
– Inklight

After a mad couple of days reading poems, curling ribbons, and frantically trying to scrub the labels off jam jars, the Cafe Poetry project ran from 22nd October – November 4th 2012.

For this project, I worked with poet Elizabeth Mann. We took submitted poems from a number of emerging poets from across the country, and placed them in jam jars in Bibi’s Cafe in St Andrews. The idea was partly to provide a platform for emerging poets’ work, but also to make poetry something exciting, to be happened upon unexpectedly, for the cafe’s patrons.

While the poems were in place, I popped into the cafe a number of times (partly to check on the poems, but also to eat cake), and noticed lots of people reading them. But when we went to collect the jars of poetry at the end of the project, we had a surprise waiting for us: a handwritten poem, signed ‘Anon’.

This is what the project was all about. I loved it that our project inspired someone to write something, and I loved it even more that the mysterious writer chose to share that poem with us. The poem itself also gave Elizabeth and me a bit of a giggle: