Friday, 5th December, 2025
Doors open at 6:00pm for 6:15pm start
The Box Factory
59 Regent St, Adelaide, SA 5000
To celebrate the first 50 years of FSP, we are launching:
Chronicle – The First Fifty Years of Friendly Street
This is an important history of one of the South Australia’s cultural landmarks (us). Supported by a grant from CreateSA, we can sell it to members for $5.00 (one copy each). Each of our 50 contributors will be acknowledged with the presentation of a free copy of this special publication.
A more elaborate second edition with colour and updates about the Love In and other FSP 50th Anniversary events will come out in the new year.
Following the launch, there will be a regular Open Mic.
$5 to read at the Open Mic; free to listen.
Strict 3-minute time limit, including any introductions, explanations and post-scripts.
This will be the final opportunity to submit poems read at the Open Mic for consideration in the next Anthology. Please use the form below.
A POTTED HISTORY OF THE VERY FIRST MEETING
We met for the first time on Nov 11th 1975, the day of the sacking of the Whitlam government by a pimple of a Governor General. The convenor of that first meeting of the poetry group recalls wondering if anyone would turn up. Surely the populace would rise up and take to the streets to protest the overthrow of a legitimately elected government. But civil unrest never happened. Personally, I think it was because all the anarchists were at Friendly Street reading poetry. Another reason might have been that in the audience that night was a scruffy chap carrying a bottle in a paper bag. He looked like a vagrant who’d just wandered in off the street. This was John Bray, Chancellor of the University of Adelaide, Chief Justice, and brilliant poet. One poet remarked that if there was indeed trouble because of the dismissal at least they would all be safe because of the presence of John Bray.