Creative Outlooks - Performance Poetry Played to Perfection

Jun, 21 2026

For many people a public house or commonly known as a pub is the establishment for heavy drinking, socialising and seeing your favourite bands. Now, although The Continental pub on South Meadow Lane caters for those things it does also provide a more sophisticated alternative which is the focus for this month’s ‘Creative Outlooks’.

Over a period of months and several years The Damson Poets have been meeting the last Wednesday of the month for a couple of hours of shared performance poetry. As you enter if you feel inclined to perform you let organisers know and you can perform a medley of your work.

Evidence of this is found a couple of years ago at the May 30th 2024 evening. Take a look and be inspired –

Now two years later it has grown into a creative respite from the daily grind. Sometimes they have guest poets and you can volunteer to perform more than once. There is an interval after the first hour and everybody is very encouraging, clapping in the right place and laughing should the need be.

For the latest information on the Damson Poets check out the following website link –

https://damsonpoets.wordpress.com/

This is all good and proper you may say but what if you’re new to this creative discipline and you’d like a 5 minute 11 second introduction to performance poetry. Please watch the following video –

So the next big question is when is the next Damson Poets? The forthcoming Damson Poets evening will take place this Wednesday 24th June 2026 – 7.30pm – 9.30pm in the event space/The Boatyard of The Continental.

Guest poet Steve Rowland will be sharing his work from his recently published book Tangerine. There will also be the usual mixture of new and more experienced readers so it’s an evening that belongs to everyone and if you want to listen that’s great as well.

They will start taking names for reading slots from 7.15pm. Each slot is a maximum of 5 minutes. Entrance is free. For further information simply email Terry at -tsqdor@hotmail.com

If you’ve always had a fascination with words and have the ability to rhyme then Damson Poets could be for you. Perhaps you’re an English literature graduate, seasoned pro or English teacher. Either way you’ll feel at home at Damson Poets. Everybody is made to feel welcome and even if you prefer to test the water initially you can observe and note how others have their own personal techniques to perform. You’ll come away inspired with an appetite to learn no longer a damson in distress.

 ^Alex Ashworth Director of Creativity