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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