Pub is The Hub is again thanking publicans for their continued resilience and support of their local communities with the ‘National Poem of Thanks to Our Nation’s Publicans.’
The thank you poem for publicans called ‘The Public House’ was originally released by Pub is The Hub and arts project INN CROWD in 2021.
The poem is written and performed by poet and actress Alexandra Ewing, the daughter of a former publican who grew up in pubs in Suffolk. Ewing also worked for a decade as front of house staff in the hospitality industry, including pubs.
To watch Alexandra Ewing read the poem
The Public House Rumbles
By Alexandra Ewing
We hear it before we arrive
At the door you hold open like a beating heart
Voices upon chinks and clinks and sloshes and swills and bawling, singing sounds
Conducted by you
A rumble
Through the floorboards, within the walls, we feel your industry
The weaving of art and intuition with which you
Serve
Welcome
Embrace a world-sized room
With a rumble
Patience is poured
And joy rolled, tapped, lightly on the tongue fizzing with Coca-Cola from the gun and
So many stories, memory eddying in the air
Lifted in the rumble
Glinting against glasses you carry in shatter-less towers
Fuelled by barrels of generosity and curiosity
It smells like beer and smoke and cheese and cheer
And crinkles the way packets of crisps
Are shared between staff and strangers when the movement shifts
This rumble
Brave as whiskey
Bold as brass
A laugh like a bell
And a warmth unmatched, built hearth upon hearth
Your house rumbles
A hum, steady and strong
Brewed, stoppered, popped with applause
That heart open with song
Worn on your sleeve next to a hand all can grasp
Beating in rhythm to your rumble.
