News & Events

Oxford Poetry Library presents a brand new spoken word open mic night! Join us in the library on the first Tuesday of every month (starting July 5th) to enjoy all manner of word-weaving, story-sharing, and spell-casting.  

We welcome poets, storytellers, and writers of all kinds to share their work (or the work of others) in a safe, supportive, and inclusive space. Slots are 5 minutes long, and performers sign up on the door – first come, first served! 

Each month we will also showcase the work of a particular creator with an extended set. In July, that will be Stilly’s Terrible Drawn Tales. Stilly has lived in Iffley, Oxford for the past 18 years.  Originally from Yorkshire he is a storyteller, poet and illustrator who combines all three arts to create something both traditional and new. Imagine a magic lantern show with a powerpoint projector and you’re nearly there. Think of an episode of the Twilight Zone performed by Stanley Holloway, with pictures by Edward Gorey and words by Roald Dahl, and you’re not even close. Macabre settings, twisted endings and saucy tales to thrill, bewilder and amuse.  

Our first session will happen on July 5th, 7.30pm (performers are advised to arrive by 7.15pm), at The Community Works (21 Park End St, OX1 1HU). 

£5 entry, performers free. 

There is no bar, but it is BYOB (wine and beer only, no spirits please!), and this event is 18+.

If you have any accessibility needs, we are an accessible building! But please drop us a line beforehand at oxfordpoetrylibrary@gmial.com

We are thinking of extending our opening hours! Being totally volunteer-run, we have limited resources, so we want to make sure we are open at the times when our borrowers are most likely to be able to visit us. Click the button below to fill in a very short survey about when you would be interested in visiting the library to browse our library, borrow from the collection, and hang out with our poetry games and activities!

As part of this year’s Oxford Pride celebrations, we will be running a day of activities at the library with inspiration from our collection of LGBTQAI+ poets past and present. Engage with our classic word games, explore surprising crafts and workshop your poetic expressions for Queer Euphoria & Pride 2022!

Free, drop-in anytime between 12pm and 3pm at The Community Works, activities and books for all ages!

Since 2017, we have been peddling (and pedalling!) our wares through the streets of Oxford in a big purple cargo bike. We now at last have a physical space to call our own in The Community Works in the heart of the city centre. After months of painting shelves, getting books onto those shelves, gathering an army of volunteer librarians, and setting up our regular opening hours, we are ready to celebrate this new space and have a proper housewarming.

To mark the occasion, we will be running a whole day of activities for all ages, and an evening showcase of poetry performances on Saturday April 9th.

Housewarming Day

On Saturday 9^th April between 10am and 4pm for a day of poetry fun, crafting, and storytelling. You’ll find a wide range of fun activities to try out, designed for people of all ages and abilities, all alongside our diverse collection of poetry which is free to browse and borrow.

Here’s a flavour of the fun you can take part in:

·       Take part in a poetry game, including our famously fun magnetic poetry kit

·       Pop in and add a line or two to an Oxford Community poem using a retro typewriter

·       Listen to stories from the Many Voices Collection told by local writers and performers

·       Take part in Poetry Orienteering to find hidden gem locations in Oxford, and then decorate a map with a poem of your making

·       Help us decorate the library with art and collaging

·       Join in a Poetry Workshop and, if you’re feeling like it, share your poem

This event is free but any donations will be gratefully received!

Housewarming Night

On Saturday April 9th from 7.30pm, join us for an evening of poetry, spoken word, and music. We will have performances from gems of the Oxford poetry scene:

Laura Theis

Claire LeMaster

Gommie

and a musical interlude from Sam Twigg Johnson.

We will also have an open mic session so please bring your own spoken word to share, if you would like to perform. Slots will be 2 minutes long and sign-up will be on the door on arrival. We can’t wait to hear what you’ve got up your sleeve!

Tickets for the evening event are £7 (£5 concessions/Patreon supporters) and can be bought in advance here.

The Community Works can be found on Frideswide Square, opposite the train station at 21 Park End Street. To find out more about this new venue, click here.

To find out more about this event, including any questions about accessibility, please drop us a line at oxfordpoetrylibrary@gmail.com

Feminist poetry badges are BACK!

And you’ll get the chance to get creative and make your own on March 12th as part of Young Women’s Music Project‘s takeover event at OVADA Gallery.

Come along to YWMP Takeover @ OVADA for a day of music, workshops, art, films and food – everyone is welcome!

YWMP presents a jam-packed programme to celebrate ‘Resistance and Resilience’: an exploration of the experiences of the young people, leaders and workers involved in grassroots music projects and our collective vision for transforming local music scenes.

As part of the proceedings, we’re running a poetry and badge-making workshop. Drop in from 4pm-6pm to explore poetry in our collection by women, non-binary, and trans writers, and be inspired to create badges with feminist slogans. All materials provided!

YWMP’s TAKEOVER will run all day and into the evening – find the full programme here: www.ywmp.org/ywmptakeover

Looking to do some eco-friendly, bookish last minute Christmas shopping?

On Saturday December 18th, as well as running our usual library stall, Orinoco – The Oxfordshire Scrapstore will be joining us at The Community Works from 12pm til 3pm for a BIG BOOK SALE!

These are shiny new books which have been donated to Orinoco by an Oxford publishing company, of a wide range of genres, for kids and adults alike, and which can be yours for a small donation.

Our library will be open for browsing and borrowing, but bring some spare change to pick up some books for a bargain!

We’ve been working hard to move into our new physical space at The Community Works as part of an exciting initiative run by Makespace Oxford, transforming a disused building in central Oxford into a mix of work space for social enterprises and meeting space for community groups.

We’ll be finally ready to share it with you on the first weekend of December!

Come along to our new home in The Community Works (21 Park End St, opposite the train station and Said Business School) – browse the collection, register as a borrower, take home a book or two – all for free!

We have poetry books galore for adults and kids, plus friendly librarians on hand to make recommendations and tell you more about our project.You can also find out how to get involved and volunteer with us.

Drop in anytime between 11am and 4pm on Saturday 4 December or Sunday 5 December. We can’t wait to see you there!

Since 2017, we have been operating on a mobile basis, running the library out of our big purple cargo bike. We’ve been building a community of borrowers, reaching out to people all over the city, and growing as a library and organization.

This year, we were invited to become part of an exciting initiative run by ​​Meanwhile in Oxfordshire transforming a disused building in central Oxford into a mix of work space for social enterprises and meeting space for community groups. We will be setting up shop in this space, called ‘The Community Works’, in October 2021.

But we need your help! To fund this exciting new step in our journey, we’re launching a Patreon account. Patreon is a platform that invites anyone to contribute a monthly donation to an organization. Patrons (people who sign up to contribute these monthly donations) will support the running costs and fees for renting a physical space, as well as the upkeep of our existing books, running local community events, and expanding the collection further

To become a patron, find out more, and support our work, visit our Patreon page!

Since lockdown began in March 2020, we’ve being rustling up some poems for breakfast every weekday morning, inviting subscribers to make a poem the first thing they read every day instead of the headlines. We created an email list which has to date reached over 800 subscribers all over the world, and sent all those lovely people a daily poem to digest throughout the day. It’s been a wonderful journey over the past 18 months, finding poems that feel hopeful, consoling, seasonally-appropriate, thought-provoking, while also making sure we’re representing all different kinds of poetry from a range of diverse voices.

All good things must come to an end, however, and we’ve decided that now is the time to wind down the Poems for Breakfast project. OPL is moving on to pastures new, with a move later this autumn into a permanent space which we hope will become a resource for people to access our hundreds of books, share ideas, connect with each other, and enjoy reading and writing. Although we will greatly miss our Poems for Breakfast project, redirecting our energy to this exciting new venture will continue to allow all sorts of people to discover and delight in the magic of poetry!

We’ll be sending breakfast poems out for the next month, with the last mailing on 15 October. From then, we hope to be set up in our new physical space in central Oxford. The world will always need poetry, and I hope the habit of reading a poem a day will stay with our dear subscribers – but rather than seeing us in your inboxes, why not come find us in real life, and borrow a book or two!

Thank you so much to everyone who has enjoyed the Poems for Breakfast project, to anyone who has donated money or sent us poem suggestions, or even just been in touch with feedback and responses to the mailouts. It has meant a great deal to us to hear about the impact these poems have made to your mornings these past years.


A few logistical things in a handy FAQ…


I have a regular donation set up through Paypal. Should I cancel it?

Firstly: THANK YOU! The money we’ve received through these donations has allowed us to continue the Poems for Breakfast project for as long as we did. We are truly grateful for this support. We understand that now the mailings are stopping, you might want to cancel your monthly donation. You can stop your payments through Paypal at any time. However, any continued donations or surplus at the end of the project will go directly towards sustaining the poetry library with all its future endeavours, including its new physical home.

Where can I find OPL in the future, and how can I continue to support their work?

Our new permanent home will be in central Oxford. The last details are just being finalized, but more details will be released in the next few weeks. Stay tuned on our website and sociail media for more information!

Later this month, we will be setting up a Patreon account for the library. Patreon is a platform that allows people to sign up to give regular monthly donations to support an organization in return for perks, mailouts, and updates. Through the OPL Patreon, we hope to cover the costs associated with keeping a permanent space, as well as the upkeep of the books, expanding the collection, and running events and workshops. More information about how to contribute to this Patreon will be released later in September so please stay tuned on our social media and website for information!

Will you be releasing the poems anywhere publicly?

Due to copyright issues, we can’t publish the poems anywhere publicly. However, in the last week of mailings, we plan to release a list of the ~400 poems we shared as part of the project, so all subscribers have a record and can seek the poems out online or in book form!

From the Ground Up: Stories of Climate Action is a celebration of 20 years of the Community Action Group (CAG) Oxfordshire project, a network of almost 100 grassroots community action groups working on issues as diverse as waste, transport, food, energy, biodiversity and social justice.

The exhibition will run from 1 September til 9 October at the Old Fire Station and showcases the work of 20 of these Community Action Groups, of which Oxford Poetry Library is one! We will be displaying the work which has emerged from our The Lost Words project. Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris’s book, The Lost Words, encourages readers to connect with nature through poetry, and rediscover the wonder of the natural world. Inspired by this book, we have run a number of workshops over the past 2 years in schools and community groups, working with mental health charities and other arts organizations. In this exhibition, we will be celebrating the poetry written by the children and adults during these workshops.

We have been hard at work with a local artist and book-binder to create a beautiful book of this poetry. The book will be on display and available to browse at the exhibition so don’t miss the chance to come along and explore!