SUE LEWIS is a South London poet. Her poetry speaks with empathy and insight about how things are; the texture of our lives.

Sometimes

after windswept phases
there is healing salt

the moon’s serenity
will pour into the street

and for a moment

you’ll be startled by your insight

how the taste of it seems
scarlet in your mouth.

Rare grace
to brush against that music

touch the tenderness
of transient things.

(‘Kairos’—Written down in pencil)

Sue has won the Cinnamon Press poetry pamphlet competition three times: with Texture in 2019, with Journey in 2021 and in 2024 with Between the Words. She has twice been shortlisted for the Bridport Poetry Prize and her work has been published in poetry magazines, anthologies and haiku journals.

Sales of signed advance copies of her recent pamphlet collection Written down in pencil, which was published by Hedgehog Press in 2024, raised £500 for charity.

She reads regularly with Sutton Writers, Mole Valley Poets and Croydon’s Poets Anonymous. She is a member of the British Haiku Society, the Kith writing community and Arts Network Sutton. She has an MA in Creative Writing, for which she was awarded a Distinction.

Journey, Texture and Between the Words are available from Cinnamon Press and from all good online bookshops and Amazon. Written down in pencil is available as a print copy from Amazon or as a PDF from Hedgehog Press.

Between the Words was published in March 2025 by Cinnamon Press in their 20th year as an independent publisher. As part of Cinnamon’s annniversary celebrations, Sue will be reading at Clapham Books, 26 The Pavement, Clapham Common, London SW4 on 14 May, 7.00 pm.