Russell Thompson

‘In the late 1980s I belonged to a poetry group in Essex, and one month we had a special guest: Mary Enright from somewhere called the Poetry Library. Excitingly, Mary invited us to hold our next meeting at the library itself. Us Chelmsford hicks in that there London! On the day, the library didn’t disappoint. A jolly fun place to work, I thought.

‘A mere thirty years later, my wish (if that’s what it had been) came true. By then, I’d spent a decade teaching creative writing, a decade programming spoken-word events, and a decade traipsing round the poetry-cabaret circuit in a skirt. These days I can usually be found on the library’s front desk, hoping that some of this experience has ultimately been to the greater good of our customers.’