FSP City Meetings

Poem of the Month – March 2025 – Helen Hutton

The Poem of the Month for March 2025, selected by 2025 Anthology editors Val Braendler and Ben Adams, is Cold Case by Helen Hutton. The commended poems are Taking the Master Class by Nigel Ford, 3 x H20 by Bruce Greenhalgh and Ends and Soapbubbles by Avalanche.

Cold Case
Helen Hutton

i
Night is crisp as a nurse’s bib
and the bench seat in the old Holden
cold and narrow like an ambo’s gurney …
there’s me – look – pressed against the passenger door
      no handle,       no window winder      no escape.
He strokes the column shift
sweat glistens on the ginger hairs
on the back of his hand, saliva pools
in the corner of his mouth …
No need to sit over there, city Sheila.… Click for more

Poem of the Month – February 2025 – Erica Jolly

The Poem of the Month for February 2025, selected by 2025 Anthology editors Val Braendler and Ben Adams, is Remembering Mark Twain by Erica Jolly. The commended poems are Another Day at the Home for Incurables by Cary Hamlyn, glance by Billy-Jack Johnstone and The Soul’s Code by Inez Martinez.

Remembering Mark Twain
Erica Jolly

This story comes from
Back Matter – the archives
of Lapham’s Quarterly
‘Philosophy’ Volume VIII,
No. 3 Summer 2015.
 
You warned us all
about the temptation
to vice and corruption
in your satire The Gilded Age.
 
Plutocrats – all hungry –
finding immense riches
in technical advances
after the Civil War.… Click for more

FSP 2025 Annual General Meeting and April Open Mic

Friday 4 April 2025
Meeting commences at 6:25pm

The Box factory
59 Regent Street, Adelaide

This month’s meeting will begin with our 2025 AGM. You must be a current financial member of FSP to take part in the AGM.

There are openings for positions on the Management Committee. If you would like to nominate, follow the instructions on the agenda or send us a message via this link:
Nominate for Committee.

If you are unable to attend the AGM but would like to vote via a proxy, please nominate your proxy via a message at this link: Proxy nomination.… Click for more

FSP March City Meeting and Open Mic

Friday, 7th March, 2025
from 6:00pm

The Box Factory
59 Regent St, Adelaide, SA 5000

All welcome!

$5 to read. 3 minutes per poet.
Free to listen.

Everyone welcome!

You must be a member of FSP to submit your poems for consideration for publication in the annual anthology. Bring two printed copies of your poems with your name and contact details to submit for next year’s anthology, or submit them electronically via the form below after the session.

… Click for more

A Love In! FSP 50th Anniversary Celebration – call out for readers

To celebrate us and those older poets who make up our rich history, the 7th November 2025 FSP City Meeting will follow a special format at the usual Box Factory venue.

30 volunteer poets are invited to read any poem by any poet from any FSP Reader or Anthology prior to number 30 along with a short biography of that poem’s author. The reader cannot read one of their own poems from these anthologies. However, they can read ONE poem of their own for consideration for 2025’s anthology. There will be no open mic.

Suggestions are now open and will be curated by David Cookson, on a first come, first served basis.… Click for more

A Chronicle of Friendly Street’s First Fifty Years – Call for Contributions.

As part of Friendly Street’s fiftieth anniversary year in 2025, we are inviting contributions from past and present members or attendees for a ‘Chronicle’ of recollections about what Friendly Street has meant and provided in ‘human’ terms for those involved over the last half century.

These memories should be in the form of short vignettes, no more than two paragraphs or 500 words long. They can be composed as prose, poetry, or a mixture of both.

The vignette must express each contributor’s sense of a significant memory, anecdote, or reflection on why Friendly Street mattered – whether for them personally or in broader social terms – during the period when they first became involved.… Click for more

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