The Medway Poets

The Medway Poets were founded in Medway, North Kent, in 1979. They were an English punk based poetry performance group and later formed the core of the first Stuckists Art Group. The members were Miriam Carney, Billy Childish, Rob Earl, Bill Lewis, Sexton Ming and Charles Thomson (and briefly initially Alan Denman). Others associated with the group include Philip Absolon, Sanchia Lewis and Tracey Emin. Most members also practiced other art forms including music and painting.

The origin of The Medway Poets was a series of readings called "Outcrowd" staged by (Bill) Lewis and Earl from 1975 on the bank of the River Medway in Maidstone, Kent, in the Lamb Pub, later called Drake's Crab and Oyster House. These led on to readings promoted by a Medway College tutor, Alan Denman, in the York Pub in Chatham, which brought The Medway Poets together, inspired by a fusion of the then-new punk movement and a historical reference to Berlin cabaret. Lewis named the group.

Alan Denman was briefly a member, but the group stabilised to Miriam Carney, Billy Childish, Rob Earl, Bill Lewis, Sexton Ming and Charles Thomson. Others who read with the group included Philip Absolon and Sanchia Lewis (no relation to Bill Lewis).

The Medway Poets' appearances included pubs and colleges, sometimes with punk groups, as well as the Kent Literature Festival and the 1981 international Cambridge Poetry Festival. There were, however, personality clashes within The Medway Poets, particularly between Childish and Thomson, who said, "There was friction between us, especially when he started heckling my poetry reading and I threatened to ban him from a forthcoming TV documentary." However, a TV South documentary on the group in 1982 brought them to a wider regional audience.

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