In October 2002 The Poetry Cubicle successfully gained a Millennium Award to set up The Poetry Cubicle Library. In line with the main ethos of The Poetry Cubicle, we have begun to (slowly and solely) establish the library by collecting poetical works of an eccentric nature. We are committed to supporting the poetical under dog, the lost, forgotten, or denounced poet and the simply great, bad, mad and downright dangerous poet. This list includes but does not end with William McGonagall; Carol Ann Duffy; Jean 'Binta' Breeze; Rudyard Kipling; G K Chesterton; B. P. Nichols; Jeff Nuttall; Peter Finch; Vicki Feaver; Bob Cobbing; Lawrence Bradby; Ramona Herdman; Philip Larkin; Philip Gross; Barry McSweeney; C. K. Williams; Carolyn Forche; Kalman Farago; Kimiko Hahn; Pablo Neruda; Christian Ide Hintze; Andraz Polic; Charles Bernstein; Martin Jankowski; Will Parfitt. Our main aim is to collect what we term 'lost and forgotten' poetry. By this we mean poetry books, pamphlets, 'zines, paper etc. printed, photocopied or produced by whatever means possible in only small numbers, such as a pamphlet published in 1968 in Canada that originally had only 100 copies printed. Maybe only one or two or a few survive to this day, that made it through the trash cans, moved homes, spilt drinks and cigarette ash mistakes of time. Who knows. But we have one copy in the library, and our aim is to keep on collecting and saving more poetry like this. The same goes for modern editions, as we think that in 20 years time there may similarly be few copies left of say a first collection published by a small press publisher in 500 editions in paperback. We sure would like to ensure that Ramona Herdman's wonderful first collection, 'Come What You Wished For' survives further than the copies that sit on her own bookshelf as it is such a great book. We are also committed to making poetry more accessible and are in the process of producing poetry in braille, poetry in audio formats and poetry in large print. We are amassing other language selections too, and currently as of August 2006 have titles in English, Spanish, Hungarian, Persian, Slovenian, German, Indonesian, Latin and French. And to appease members who want the obvious choice, we do also have a basic foundation of the greats and classics so that yeah, you can get your hands on a Seamus Heaney, Ted Hughes, Wordsworth or Tennyson title if you really want, but this isn't our primary goal. Please contact us if you can make suggestions as to what poetry YOU would like to read in a different format so we can add it to our list. We hope to provide everyone with the opportunity to access poetry, so if you have any great reads or recommends you think we simply must get a hold of – please get in touch. We are also not against being sent poetry books to add to our library so if you feel a donation coming on – roll with it baby. The Poetry Cubicle Library is open to everyone: to join we simply ask for a £5 membership fee (UK membership only. Refundable once you cancel your membership) and proof of address and ID. Once you are a member of The Poetry Cubicle Library you may borrow a set number of books for a set period, to read at your leisure. In the meantime, if you can't get down to wherever The Poetry Cubicle Library is itself, then we are able to send you books if you can supply the cost of the postage and packaging. When we win the lottery (properly, not like, er, being given a little bit for free) or when we make a fortune as table dancers or Wall Street analysts (it's not looking good boys) we will pay for all costs for everything for ever and ever and ever we promise. Just not right now. As we are fairly poor. We are even, we dare say, eligible for Working Families Tax Credit if we could only work out how to fill the form in online. Oh well. Here's to slumming it!

In the meantime, to while away the blues, why not search our catalogue to see what poetry books from The Poetry Cubicle Library you could be able to borrow today . . .