Poet Laureate of the Forest Cafe Free Shop

The Forest Cafe is a long standing part of Edinburgh's alternative community. In it's first incarnation it was housed in a tenement in Forest Road and had a wonderful back room cafe which hosted the Golden Hour (a monthly evening of poetry, stories, music and cartoons were I once gave a poetry reading).

The Forest Cafe now is at Tollcross (you can see photos of this cafe in this blog post about the Quiet Forest Visual Poetry exhibition I was part of). The cafe serves a selection of vegetarian and vegan foods and hosts events and a free shop.

I'm delighted that I've been chosen as the first 'Poet Laureate of the Forest Cafe Free Shop' a week long role which will see me holding a writing workshop and a reading where I will talk about the free shop, read short stories and poetry and people who've been along to the workshop will also read poetry. I will also be in the cafe for large parts of the week, writing poetry, helping out in the cafe and organising the free shop (and possibly sneaking poetry into some of the items in the free shop!).

My poet laureateship will last from Tuesday 6 November to Monday 12 November. The writing workshop will be at 3pm Sunday 11 November (the Facebook event is here) and the poetry reading will be at 4pm Monday 12 November (the Facebook event is here). Feel free to come along to either of those events if you can and if you're around Tollcross any time that week feel free to pop in and see if I'm around!