Poetry International at the Southbank Centre
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Poetry International at the Southbank Centre, 21st – 23th July 2023.
Planet Summer at the Southbank Centre, 21st June – 3rd September 2023.
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Founded by Ted Hughes in 1967, the major biannual poetry festival returns for the first time since 2019, this time as part of the Southbank Centre’s multi-artform season of events focused on the climate, Planet Summer.
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Poetry International examines the environment, celebrating poets as activists and those using their craft to preserve languages and environments. The line-up includes major ecopoets; CAConrad, John Kinsella, Olive Senior and Yang Lian presenting new work and leading workshops for the public. The next generation of climate activist poetry is celebrated with the Gingko Prize ceremony, a major international award for ecopoetry and Cerys Matthews revisits the beloved fictional world of Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood. Poetry International 2023 also celebrates the National Poetry Library’s 70th Birthday, the largest public collection of poetry in the world, marking 35 years at the Southbank Centre. The one-off showcase features live readings from CAConrad, John Kinsella, Lidija Dimkovska, Belinda Zhawi, Yang Lian and Olive Senior.
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Former Poet Laureate Ted Hughes created the festival as a response to the global polarisation of east and west during the Cold War. Writing in his introduction to the brochure in 1967, Hughes said: ‘The idea of global unity is not new, but the absolute necessity of it has only just arrived, like a sudden radical alteration of the sun.’ In 2023, Poetry International examines one of the most pressing global issues – the climate crisis.
Alongside Poetry International, the Southbank Centre is running Planet Summer between 21 June and 3 September, a landmark season that explores themes of care, hope, connection and activism in response to the climate emergency. From its origins in the Festival of Britain in 1951 to today, the Southbank Centre has a history of producing pioneering artistic programmes, and Planet Summer is no exception, exploring one of the most urgent issues of our time.
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Performances, exhibitions, music, new artistic commissions and free programming will connect audiences with a range of environmental issues and highlight the need for active care of the environment and nature. Poetry International festival (21 – 23 July) gathers ecopoets from around the world with new commissions and collaborations, in spirit with their universal goals to preserve, protect and activate change.
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On the necessity of ecopoetics as a tool for political change, John Kinsella tells The London Magazine that: ‘To write against extinction obligates us to write to prevent extinction. Green metals mining that leads to the loss of species is an exploitation of the climate crisis and morally repugnant in itself. Poems must bear witness to this. Ambiguity is the essence of a poem, giving infinite possibilities of reading, but our purpose in protecting and respecting environment cannot be ambiguous.”
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Continuing, he says “how we behave around our poems seems equally important to me. How we write or record them, how we publish and travel to deliver them. The choices we make. All of us can play a role in reducing our impact on the biosphere. A poem that talks of the wrongs being enacted by industry — that directly or indirectly benefits from that same industry— is purely serving an aesthetic purpose, and not an environmentalist purpose. A poem has to give a lot and take much less or even nothing back. A poem has to plant more trees than it uses. A poem has to recycle. A poem has to link ‘difference’ in no-appropriating ways. A poem asks questions, prompt doubts, and challenges the language of complicity. A poem is a biosphere.”
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Amongst a stellar line-up, events include:
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Out-Spoken: July
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20 July, Purcell Room, 7.45pm
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London’s premier night of poetry and live music kicks off Poetry International Festival with a stellar line-up. Poets Tishani Doshi, Rebecca Goss and Momtaza Mehri bring vibrant poetry reading performances between sets of live music. Out-Spoken are in residency at the Southbank Centre and champions diversity in poetry with these monthly events. Each gig is hosted by TS Eliot and Polari Prize winning poet Joelle Taylor, with Sam ‘Junior’ Bromfield spinning the best in reggae, soul and R&B throughout the evening.
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21 July, National Poetry Library, Royal Festival Hall, 9pm.
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Cedar Lewisohn’s Office Poems are a wry take on working life in the 21st century, which have been translated into Jamaican Patois and recorded onto vinyl for a limited edition dubplate. A selection of the texts are presented here as part of a soundscape poetry performance that evokes the history of dub poetry.
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The Ecology of Eclogues Workshop with John Kinsella
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22 July, National Poetry Library, 10am – 12 noon.
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A workshop led by John Kinsella to learn the ancient form of the eclogue, an ecologically focused poem that sets up competing viewpoints or voices. The eclogue is a venerable form of poetry that serves as one of the cornerstones of ‘the pastoral’. Kinsella’s workshop explores writing modern ‘anti-pastoral’ eclogues that create dynamics between contesting parties with examples from his latest collection, The Pastoraclasm (Salt, 2023).
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Dear Earth Poetry Workshop with Belinda Zhawi
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22 July, Hayward Gallery Foyer, 11am.
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Draw inspiration from the Hayward Gallery exhibition Dear Earth: Art and Hope in a Time of Crisis to pen poems on the themes and artworks encountered with the guidance of literary and sound artist and author of the pamphlet Small Inheritances, Belinda Zhawi.
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Irish culture and the poetic landscape of the Emerald Isle is celebrated in this afternoon of mesmeric and musical readings. Cherry Smyth and Craig Jordan-Baker perform If the River is Hidden, a live version of their book following the route of the Bann, Northern Ireland’s longest river, and the history and divisions that have defined Northern Ireland. Eiléan Ní Chuilleanái – regarded as one of Ireland’s greatest poets – gives an extended reading. Film director Sé Merry Doyle then presents his feature-length documentary, Patrick Kavanagh – No Man’s Fool.
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22 July, Queen Elizabeth Hall, 2pm.
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Cerys Matthews, musician, author and broadcaster, reimagines the beloved fictional world of Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood in an afternoon of storytelling and music. Matthews is joined by multi-instrumentalist Arun Ghosh and artist Kate Evans, who worked alongside Matthews to produce a picture-book of Under Milk Wood for children. The picture book’s publication by Weidenfeld & Nicolson this year marks the 70th anniversary of Thomas’ ‘play for voices’.
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Dear Earth Poetry Workshop with Olive Senior
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22 July, Hayward Gallery Foyer, 3pm.
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The Poet Laureate of Jamaica leads you through writing exercises responding to the works and themes in the Hayward Gallery’s climate-focused exhibition, Dear Earth: Art and Hope in a Time of Crisis.
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Gwenno: Tressor
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22 July, Queen Elizabeth Hall, 7:30pm.
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Sound artist, DJ and singer Gwenno presents her 2022 album Tresor, whose songs are sung entirely in Cornish (Kernewek). Gwenno’s father, the renowned poet Tim Saunders, is also performing a short set of Cornish language poetry before the music begins. Tresor was selected as a BBC 6 Music Album of the Year and was shortlisted for the 2022 Mercury Prize.
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Repeat Patterns: Poetry and Fashion
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22 July, National Poetry Library, Royal Festival Hall, 8pm.
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Poets Amy Key and Jane Yeh present newly commissioned work in response to the fashion of iconic female poets. Joined by the curators of Poets in Vogue exhibition, Sophie Oliver and Sarah Parker, the poets discuss what style and dress means to them. The curators give insights on the lives of radical poets such as Edith Sitwell and Anne Sexton, who brought glamour and controversy to historic moments at Poetry International festival and the Royal Festival Hall.
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My Art, My Activism
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23 July, Level 5 Function Room, Royal Festival Hall, 3pm.
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Poets are increasingly activists engaged in social and political campaigns. Not only is their work a vehicle for change, but their practice as poets can involve much more than writing at a desk. Poets Khairani Barokka, Lidija Dimkovska and Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi as they discuss the process of being a writer with a strong commitment to fostering a better world with host Aaron Kent – poet and editor of Broken Sleep Books.
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National Poetry Library at 70: International Celebration
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23 July, Queen Elizabeth Hall, 7pm.
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The National Poetry Library, the largest public collection of modern poetry in the world, turns 70. Help us celebrate the milestone with a who’s who line-up of renowned international poets, featuring live readings from CAConrad, Jorie Graham, John Kinsella, Lidija Dimkovska, Belinda Zhawi, Yang Lian and Olive Senior in this one-off showcase.
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For more information about Poetry International and Planet Summer, visit the Southbank Centre website.
Image courtesy of the artist, Jenny Kendler, Birds Watching I, 2018.
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