To give you some idea of what we do, here are the programmes for some past years.
| January | Poetry Café |
| Optional subject: Roads and Paths | |
| February | Poetry Café |
| Optional subject: Poems of childhood | |
| March | Cancelled |
| (due to the pandemic shutdown) | |
| April | Cancelled |
| (due to the pandemic shutdown) | |
| May | Cancelled |
| (due to the pandemic shutdown) | |
| June | Cancelled |
| (due to the pandemic shutdown) | |
| July | Poetry Café |
| Optional subject: Exile | |
| October | AGM postponed |
| (Due to re-imposed restrictions) | |
| November | AGM postponed |
| (As lockdown 2 was still in force) |
| January | Brian Burden |
| The poetry of Vernon Scannell | |
| February | David Gallifant |
| The poetry of Anne Hudson | |
| March | Poetry Café |
| Optional theme: departures and arrivals | |
| April | Poetry Café |
| Optional theme: Light verse | |
| May | Poetry Café |
| Optional theme: Justice | |
| June | Poetry Café |
| Optional theme: Cats and dogs | |
| July | Poetry Café |
| Optional theme: Woods and woodland | |
| October | Annual General Meeting |
| November | Poetry Café |
| Optional theme: Transport |
| January | Poetry Café |
| Optional theme: Poets in translation | |
| February | Poetry Café |
| Optional theme: Awakening | |
| March | Poetry Café |
| Optional theme: Louis McNiece, WH Auden, C Day-Lewis, Stephen Spender (and possibly Roy Campbell) | |
| April | Meeting cancelled |
| May | Meeting cancelled |
| June | Poetry Café |
| Optional theme: Poems inspired by paintings | |
| July | Poetry Café |
| Optional theme: Illustrated books of poetry | |
| October | Annual General Meeting |
| November | David Gallifant |
| The poems of Milton |
| January | Poetry Café |
| Optional theme: Childhood | |
| February | Poetry Café |
| Optional theme: "illegal, immoral or fattening" | |
| March | Poetry Café |
| Optional theme: Sonnets | |
| April | Poetry Café |
| Optional theme: Sonnets (continued) | |
| May | Poetry Café |
| Optional theme: Trees and wood | |
| June | Poetry Café |
| Optional theme: Elizabethan Poetry | |
| July | Poetry Café |
| Optional theme: Irish poets | |
| October | Annual General Meeting |
| November | Poetry Café |
| Optional theme: Poets in translation. |
| January | Poetry Café |
| Optional theme: East Anglia | |
| February | Prose Café |
| Optional theme: Water | |
| Wed Mar 23 | Evening Poetry event with the Stebbing Ladies Group in the White Hart Pub. |
| March | Poetry Café |
| Optional theme: Renewal | |
| April | Poetry Café |
| Optional theme: Alexander Pope | |
| May | Poetry Café |
| Optional theme: John Dryden | |
| June | Poetry Café |
| Optional theme: War | |
| July | Poetry Café |
| Optional theme: Summertime | |
| October | Annual General Meeting |
| November | Poetry Café |
| Optional theme: Men and Women |
| January | Prose Café |
| Optional theme: A descriptive passage of prose | |
| February | Prose Café |
| Optional theme: A descriptive passage of prose | |
| March | Poetry Café |
| Optional theme: The Metaphysical Poets | |
| April | Poetry Café |
| Optional theme: The Metaphysical Poets (part two) | |
| May | Poetry Café |
| Optional theme: 19th century American poets | |
| June | Poetry Café |
| Optional theme: 19th century American poets (part two) | |
| July | Poetry Café |
| Optional theme: Robert Frost and Edward Thomas | |
| October | Annual General Meeting |
| November | Poetry Café |
| Optional theme: London |
| January | David Gallifant (and members) |
| John Clare | |
| February | Poetry Café |
| Optional theme: Rhythm | |
| March | Poetry Café |
| Optional theme: Journey | |
| April | Poetry Café |
| Optional theme: Renewal | |
| May | Poetry Café |
| Optional theme: Work | |
| June | Poetry Café |
| Optional theme: Summer | |
| July | Poetry Café |
| Optional theme: Poetry of the First War | |
| October | Annual General Meeting |
| November | Prose Café |
| Optional theme: Descriptive prose passages |
| January | Poetry Café |
| Optional theme: Animals | |
| February | Poetry Café |
| Optional theme: Weather | |
| March | Poetry Café |
| Optional theme: Places | |
| April | Open Poetry Café |
| Public welcome — whether participants or not! | |
| May | Poetry Café |
| Optional theme: Plants | |
| June | Ronald Blythe |
| Poets of the Second World War | |
| July | Poetry Café |
| Optional theme: Death & bereavement | |
| October | Annual General Meeting |
| November | Poetry Café |
| Optional theme: Supernatural |
| January | Member's meeting |
| Bring a poem from childhood | |
| February | Ian Griffiths |
| A Return Journey | |
| March | Marc Grimston |
| The ups and downs of a childrens' author | |
| April | Fran McMahon |
| Reads her own poems | |
| May | Catherine Dell |
| Magic, modernity & martyrdom:
an introduction to the life of Federico García Lorca | |
| June | Sue Sincock (Dickens Fellowship) |
| Dickens in the City of London | |
| July | Duncan Breckels |
| Working meeting | |
| October | Annual General Meeting |
| November | David Gallifant |
| Jack Lindsay, poet, critic and biographer |
| January | Discussion |
| February | Duncan Breckels |
| Working meeting | |
| March | Martin Figura and Helen Ivory |
| Read their own poems | |
| April | Andrea Porter |
| Talks about her latest work | |
| May | Ian Wilkes |
| Talking Heads | |
| June | Alison Chisholm |
| Wordsworth, the Dove Cottage years | |
| September | Member's meeting |
| Bring a favourite poem | |
| October | Annual General Meeting |
| November | Brian Burden |
| The Stories of H G Wells |
| January | Brian Burden |
| Walt Whitman | |
| February | Judith Palmer (Director of the Poetry Society) |
| About the Poetry Society (An open meeting) | |
| March | Pauline Stainer |
| Reads her own poems | |
| April | Working meeting (theme of Autumn/Winter) |
| May | Michael Kingdom |
| John Betjeman | |
| June | Leonee Ormond (Tennyson Society) |
| Tennyson and Landscape | |
| September | Poetry Competition |
| Adjudication by the Manningtree Stanza | |
| October | Annual General Meeting |
| Followed by preparation for literary evening | |
| November | Evening meeting for the Stebbing Ladies Group |
| January | Mervyn Linford |
| Reads his own poems | |
| February | Christine & Brian Burden |
| Edward Thomas | |
| March | Ronald Blythe |
| On being a writer | |
| April | Breaking free: Poems from Manningtree Stanza |
| May | Derek Adams |
| Catullus | |
| June | David Shacklock |
| Sabine Baring-Gould | |
| September | Poetry Competition |
| Adjudication by Adrian Green | |
| October | Annual General Meeting |
| Followed by a report on the John Clare Society | |
| November | Anne Hudson and David Gallifant |
| George Meredith |
| January | Peter Hyland |
| The life of Robert Burns | |
| February | Working meeting |
| Bring something you have written for the group to discuss | |
| March | Jo Burch |
| "Insufferable twaddle and mawkish absurdity"
— Letitia Landon and the Literary Annuals | |
| April | David Gallifant |
| Milton interpreted by Blake | |
| May | Estill Pollock |
| Reads his own poems | |
| June | Christine Rigden and CS Rowland |
| Read their own poems | |
| September | Poetry Competition |
| Adjudication by Derek Adams | |
| October | Annual General Meeting |
| Followed by @ | |
| November | Alan Byford |
| The life of Edmund Blunden |
| January | Members' meeting |
| bring favourite poems on the subject of "winter" | |
| February | Michael Mann |
| Spanish ballads | |
| March | Peter Hyland |
| Poetry of war | |
| April | Seona Ford |
| Dorothy L Sayers: her life in poetry | |
| May | Working meeting |
| Poem inspired by a picture | |
| June | Anne Hudson & David Gallifant |
| Anne Stevenson | |
| September | Poetry Competition in conjunction with the Saffron Walden Literary Festival 2007 |
| Adjudication by Martin Newell | |
| October | Annual General Meeting |
| November | Ted Evans |
| Arthur Ransome's life and loves |
| January | Peter Moyse |
| In the footsteps of John Clare | |
| February | Anne Berkeley |
| Reading her own poems | |
| March | Anne Hudson |
| The British poet Kathleen Raine | |
| April | Duncan Breckels |
| Poetry Jukebox | |
| May | David Gallifant |
| Thomas Moore and the art of writing | |
| June | Roger Johnson |
| "Look to the Lady": the life and crime fiction
of Margery Allingham | |
| September | Annual General Meeting |
| Followed by working meeting | |
| October | Poetry Competition |
| Adjudication by Pauline Stainer | |
| November | The Lord Philips of Sudbury |
| Early Nineteenth century Suffolk poets |
| January | Keith Chandler |
| Reads his own poems | |
| February | David Gallifant |
| Catching up with John Clare | |
| March | Ian Wilkes (of Ian Henry Publications) |
| Sherlock Holmes in Frankfurt | |
| April | Jan Williams |
| Essex Story Tellers | |
| May | Michael Laskey & Joanna Cutts of Smith's Knoll magazine |
| Invite us to share in an editorial meeting | |
| June | "Joinedupwriting" (Christine Rigden and Huw Evans) |
| Present their own poems | |
| September | Poetry Competition |
| Adjudication by Ronald Blythe | |
| October | Annual General Meeting |
| Followed by members reading favourite poems | |
| November | Duncan Breckels |
| Working meeting |
| January | Anne Berkeley |
| Reading her own poems | |
| February | The Untapped Writers |
| present their own work | |
| March | Ronald Blythe |
| George Crabbe | |
| April | Favourite poems |
| May | Nicholas Nottage |
| Henry Howard | |
| June | Duncan Breckels |
| The works of John Redwood Anderson | |
| September | Poetry Competition |
| Adjudication by Joe Barnett | |
| October | Annual General Meeting |
| Followed by members reading favourite poems | |
| November | Working meeting |
| Write on a subject picked at random during the meeting |
| January | David Gallifant |
| Walking with writers | |
| February | Members meeting |
| Favourite poems | |
| March | Christine Rigden |
| Reads her own poems | |
| April | Anne Hudson |
| Christina Rosetti | |
| May | John Fitch |
| The "Bab" ballads of W S Gilbert | |
| June | Peter Moyse |
| Illustrated talk on behalf of the John Clare Society | |
| September | Poetry Competition |
| Adjudication by Keith Chandler | |
| October | Annual General Meeting |
| November | AGM adjourned from October |
| January | Ronald Blythe |
| Writing a rural Journal: Word from Wormingford | |
| February | Keith Chandler |
| Reading his own poems | |
| March | Duncan Breckels |
| Prose working meeting | |
| April | Sally Carr |
| Reading her own poems | |
| May | Dr Joe Allard |
| Aspects of Modern Poetry—
getting published in little magazines | |
| June | John Fitch |
| The poetry of R N Curry | |
| September | Poetry Competition |
| Adjudication by Joe Barnett | |
| October | Cancelled: bad weather |
| December | Annual general Meeting |
| January | Pauline Stainer |
| Frances Horovitz | |
| February | |
| Working Meeting | |
| March | Donald Atkinson |
| reading his own poetry | |
| April | |
| Working Meeting | |
| May | Martin Homer |
| Baudelaire | |
| June | Ronald Blythe |
| John Clare | |
| September | Poetry Competition |
| October | Annual General Meeting |
| Followed by Robin Handford on Carribean Poetry | |
| November | @ |
| @ |
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