To mark the opening of the 2026 International Network of Street Papers Summit at Civic House, Glasgow – a former printing press – poet and friend of INSP Brian Connolly penned an original poem, ‘Word on the Street’.
Come away in. A world crossed waters and arrived here with a wave along the Clyde. Stand here in a room that remembers. All pressed together in this dear green place.
Walls once a press. Ink and iron and the clatter of the plate, the daily pressing of words to paper. So, we return to the press to speak about our papers, back to the pitch to speak about the pitch, the corner where a vendor holds a headline in hand.
This is the core of it, the twin thing, the double meaning folded in fold. The paper as a story and the paper as a wage. An issue is a problem, and an issue is the lift out of it. A pitch is a patch of pavement, and a pitch is a soft plea. A sale is a sale, and a sale is being seen.
Every soul on every sole of every worn-through shoe, every storey of this city stacked with stories, every reader who stops, who reads, who takes the paper and hands back the human. That is the work. That is the whole of it.
The press is under pressure, truth is taxed and trust runs thin. Yet here stands proof the printed word still pays its way, still puts the mighty on the spot, still puts a wage in working hands. Proof the press still finds a home for those who seek shelter.
So come away in and we’ll send you home with a haste ye back. Read all about us.
