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Cannon Poets’ meeting on 5 December 2004 marked its 21st anniversary, also celebrated by the publication of Broadside X, the latest in the series of anthologies of members’ poems. The group first met in the autumn of 1983, its foundation having been inspired by a summer workshop at the Midlands Arts Centre (now mac), led by Liverpool poet Roger McGough and Birmingham novelist Jim Crace. Some of the members were already known to each other from earlier groups but Cannon Poets was to establish a particular identity that can still be discerned 21 years later.
 
The format of the monthly meetings – still largely followed today – was centred on small groups reading and discussing poems in progress, in a helpful, constructive but essentially friendly environment. A further element was the ‘twenty minute spot’ (now two ‘tens’) which embodied one of the group’s founding principles: that members should have the opportunity of reading their work aloud, thus gaining skill and confidence in presentation.

The majority of members naturally came from the Birmingham area but, as its reputation grew, others joined from further afield – Sutton Coldfield, Bromsgrove, Walsall, Leamington, Stratford, Worcester and Tamworth. The group has also been characterised by a stimulating inter-cultural dimension, with members whose birth countries have included Great Britain, Ireland, USA, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, the Indian sub-continent and the African continent. Because of this diversity, and the fact that some members were published and performing poets in their own right, the group contributed, individually and collectively, to festivals and special events, such as the Birmingham Readers & Writers and Ledbury festivals, at several city libraries, schools and colleges, and in joint ventures with the Ikon and Birmingham art galleries.

Publication was a natural outcome of the group’s activities, leading to a regular newsletter (now The Cannon’s Mouth) and the Broadside series, first published in 1990. Other Cannon Poets’ work appeared as wall mounted displays at mac, in Birmingham Central Library and the BMI. Members have readily taken part in every National Poetry Day and have built up an admirable individual publications’ record that has been complemented by success in a wide spectrum of national poetry competitions. 

Membership of Cannon Poets has proved healthily consistent, with 25–35 members at any one time throughout its 21 years. The age span has been remarkable, at one time ranging from 18 to 90! To select individual names is always to invite criticism, not only for those omitted but possibly objection by those mentioned! Suffice to say that the secretary holds an archive of past and present membership, together with many examples of their publications and accolades. What Cannon Poets demonstrates is that poetry is a happy disease of the intellect that may strike anyone, anywhere at any time. Thus we have had members who have come from the worlds of education at all levels, librarianship, the law, medicine, banking, nursing, the social services, industry, scientific research (including nuclear physics), theatre, journalism, media – and cabaret.

The group has been fortunate in having had a continuum of hard-working members who have served on the committee, which has guided and refined policy unobtrusively and democratically throughout its existence. Workshops led by members have also deepened understanding and stimulated fresh ideas for writing. These have been complemented by readings and workshops from visiting poets. Good relationships have been built up with, especially, our long-term hosts at mac, Britain’s first modern arts centre, which has fostered the talents of so many Midlands artists; also West Midlands Arts, now Arts Council (West Midlands), and several Birmingham poets laureate, the present incumbent being one of our own members.

Twenty-one years have given Cannon Poets a unique stability among writing groups in Birmingham, the West Midlands and neighbouring counties and now, through its associate membership, is able to spread its influence even further afield. At its core, however, it must be poetry itself that has to benefit and it is safe to presume that there is no member, present or past, who has not got a nucleus of poems which have only come about because of those Sunday afternoons spent in the hexagon rooms at mac analysing, redrafting and refining their work under the collective scrutiny of The Cannon Poets