A Poet in Every Port: Celebrating the Voices of the Coast
To mark our 75th anniversary, the Southbank Centre and the National Poetry Library are taking the celebration beyond our base on London’s South Bank and out across the UK.
Leading these celebrations is A Poet in Every Port, a major national project celebrating poetry, language, and local identity. Inspired by the spirit of the 1951 Festival of Britain—the nationwide celebration of arts and culture that led to the creation of the Southbank Centre—this project will take to the road during the summer of 2026. We will be visiting 11 coastal towns and cities in a specially designed mobile version of the National Poetry Library.
At the heart of the tour is the ‘Word Exchange’, championed by our project ambassador, Roger McGough. Through free public events, workshops, and poetry readings, we will be working hand in hand with regional partners and poets across the four nations. Together, we aim to nurture local voices, archive the unique dialects of the coast, and celebrate the incredible poetry projects already thriving in each of the communities we visit.