Dear Oxfam Bookshop Customer,
I doubt I’ll ever know your name or face,
but I do know that you visited the Oxfam Bookshop in Chichester at some point
between Easter and August this year, pulled my book, The Knives of Villalejo, from
the shelf in the Poetry section, and decided to buy it. I’m left to imagine you
browsing, picking it up and flicking through the pages, perhaps pausing to
skim-read a poem or two before taking the plunge, maybe wondered who Camilla
might be (the person to whom I dedicated this copy of my book when it began its
first stab at life).
I only discovered my collection had gone when
I visited the shop last month, checked its old spot, and found it had vanished.
It was no longer sitting in its slot under S for Stewart between other books
that used to accompany it and are still left waiting to be chosen (see
picture below!).
There’s a thrill to giving a book a new owner, another reader, and I hope you’ve enjoyed your copy. The unanswerable question now, of course, is whether you’ll keep it, go back to it or even let it go again in due course to another charity shop. For now though, I’d simply like to thank you for granting it a second chance.
All the best in a shared love of
poetry,
Matthew Stewart
