Poetry Club

Poetry Club is back at The Harris Café on Thursday 19 November, with a second session following on Thursday 17 December. Both run from 6pm to 7pm, so they're early enough to fit around work or dinner.

It's an open session, which is a nice way of saying you can do whatever suits you on the night. You can bring something you've written and read it aloud, pick out a poem by someone else that you love and share it, or just sit back and listen. There's no pressure to perform, and it's open to all abilities, so you don't need any experience to get involved. It's aimed at adults, but the format is loose enough that you can just drift in and out of the conversation.

The café is inside The Harris, which is the cultural heart of Preston — a free, inclusive hub of art, literature, history and fashion right at the city's Flag Market. The gallery recently went through 'The Harris Your Place Project', a £19 million reimagining that turned it into a dynamic community, cultural and learning space for the 21st century. Its collections run from ceramics, history, fashion and glass to a 13,000-year-old elk, and the building houses library and reading spaces alongside a shop that supports local artists. The Harris Café itself works with locally sourced ingredients from across Lancashire, so it's a good spot to grab a drink before or after the poetry.

Both sessions are free, and you don't need a ticket to come along. That makes it easy to just turn up on the night, whether you're planning to read or just want to hear what others bring. The dates are Thursday 19 November and Thursday 17 December, both from 6pm to 7pm at The Harris Café, inside The Harris, Market Square, Preston, PR1 2PP.