Literature and Spoken Word Southbank Centre

Happy Crispmas: A tribute to Quentin Crisp
Presented by Southbank Centre and House of Homosexual Culture

Saturday 13 December 2008, 7.45pm
Purcell Room


The House of Homosexual Culture celebrates Quentin Crisp’s 100th birthday with a mixture of talks, discussion, performance and dressing up.

Christmas Day 2008 marks the cent...enary of Quentin Crisp’s birth, and the House of Homosexual Culture is celebrating with a special Queen’s Telegram on the occasion of his 100th birthday. Hear from the people who knew him and worked with him, who consider Crisp’s status as a writer, performer and icon, and discuss his troubled relationship with gay liberation.

There are performances, screenings and, as it’s nearly Christmas, a Quentin Lookalike Competition.Read More

Magician: Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Purcell Room
Tuesday 25 November 2008, 7.45pm

Gabriel García Márquez is one of the most iconic writers of post war literature. In this event, Tariq Ali joins Gerald Martin, author of Gabriel García Márquez: A Life, to discuss the gritty, fascinating and frequently humorous reality behind t...he books. Martin has interviewed Fidel Castro, Mario Vargas Llosa, Felipe González and hundreds of other key figures, alongside Márquez's family, to provide a uniquely detailed portrait of a Nobel Prize-winning author.

Tariq Ali is an acclaimed writer, journalist and activist. His book Pirates of the Caribbean charts the evolution of Latin American politics. Gerald Martin is the author of Journeys Through the Labyrinth: Latin American Fiction in the Twentieth Century. Read More

Zbigniew Herbert Celebration
Al Alvarez, Agnieszka Wolny-Hamkalo, Eva Hoffman & Nick Laird

Wednesday 29 October 2008, 7.45pm

Herbert is a poet with all the strength of an Antaeus. He shoulders the whole sky and the scope of human dignity and responsibility' (Seamus Heaney).

Zbigniew Herbert was one of the key poets of post...-war Europe, revered in his native Poland, but relatively little known in the UK. Bridging the worlds of history and the private life of the imagination, the gravity of his subject matter was often leavened by irony and jokes.

Marking the tenth anniversary of his death, we celebrate his work through readings, discussion and archive footage of his life with Nick Laird, whose latest collection is On Purpose, Agnieszka Wolny-Hamkalo, a poet and curator based in Krakow, novelist Eva Hoffman focuses on post-war Eastern Europe and Al Alvarez who did so much to bring his early work to the attention of UK audiences. Read More

Toni Morrison
Tuesday 28 October 2008, 7.30pm
Queen Elizabeth Hall

2008 is the 200th anniversary of the end of the trans-Atlantic slave trade in the United States. Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison's new novel, A Mercy, returns the reader to the 1680s when the slave trade was in its infancy. Jacob is an Anglo-Dutch smallho...lder in the North who employs Florens as a slave. Separated from her mother and yearning for love, this is Florens' story, set against an ambivalent world so reminiscient of Beloved. In the year that America may elect Barack Obama to the presidency, Morrison's timely novel embodies the contemporary importance of the history of the journey from slavery to freedom.
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Leontia Flynn, Glyn Maxwell, Medbh McGuckian & Tomas Venclova
Purcell Room
Monday 27 October 2008, 7.45pm

A poetry reading from three of today's leading poets. EM Forster Award-winner Glyn Maxwell's new collection Hide Now is peopled by characters as varied as Scheherazade, Robespierre and Dick Cheney, and mixes history w...ith the present. Tomas Venclova reads from The Junction: Selected Poems, the first major UK publication of his work, which explores the moral aftermath of totalitarianism with a profound lyricism.
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GB poets
Poetry reading with Tom Chivers, Valeria Melchioretto, and Sasha Aurora Akhtar
Poetry Library

Monday 27 October 2008, 6.30pm

A poetry reading celebrating the poetry scene in Britain today with poets including Tom Chivers, Valeria Melchioretto and Sascha Aurora Akhtar.

Please note: this free event requires a ticket,... please phone 0871 663 2500 to reserve. There is a £2 transaction fee for booking by phone (per transaction, not per ticket). You can also reserve your seat without a transaction fee by visiting one of our Southbank Centre Ticket Offices in person.Read More

Power in the Voice
Blue Room, Spirit Level
Monday 27 October 2008, 6.30pm

Power in the Voice is a British Council project that celebrates young people finding their voices through spoken word, performance poetry, rap, storytelling and the oral tradition.

Students from St Aloysius School perform work that took them to Botsw...ana to join others from across Southern Africa, at the Power in the Voice International Festival. Introduced by Jacob Sam La Rose and Joelle Taylor.
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Agnieszka Kuciak and Tomasz Rozycki
Literature Across Frontiers
Sunday 26 October 2008, 7pm

Agnieszka Kuciak and Tomasz Rozycki represent the next generation of Polish poetry. Writing with an appetite for traditional poetic forms, themes and cultural references, this reading marks a shift away from post-communist writing..., and is included in the New Voices from Europe and Beyond series. Zoe Skoulding, Editor of Poetry Wales, chairs the event.

In association with Literature Across Frontiers. Read More

Blake Sunday
Sunday 26 October 2008, 11am

William Blake, born 250 years ago on 28 November 1757, is one of Britain's greatest visual and literary artists. His poetry, paintings and philosophical writings are viewed as seminal works now but, so radical were his thoughts at the time, many considered him mad. In 1790, Blake... moved with his wife Catherine to 13 Hercules Buildings, near Westminster Bridge, in North Lambeth; his ten years spent there were some of the happiest and most productive of his life. 'Lovely Lambeth' was a frequent theme in Blake's poetry and art but currently there is only one lone plaque to remind passers-by that he lived in the borough.

Project Blake is a multi-disciplinary initiative run by a partnership of Southbank Mosaics, Futures Theatre Company, and Southbank Sinfonia that aims to develop a shared understanding of Blake's work in the local community, and create a lasting legacy celebrating the life of one of Lambeth's most famous residents.

Visit Spirit Level at Royal Festival Hall to record some of Blake's poems and become part of a sound installation.

11am to 12 noon: Futures Theatre Company Workshop
Futures Theatre Company presents a workshop for 8- to 11-year-olds exploring Blake's poem The Tyger from his Songs of Experience.

12 noon to 1.30pm: Futures Theatre Company Workshop
Futures Theatre Company presents a workshop for 14-year-olds and over exploring Blake's poem London from his Songs of Experience.

1.30pm to 3pm: William Blake Walk
Meet at St Paul's Pavilion
Noted Blake authority Jon Newman leads a themed walk through Blake's Lambeth.

2pm to 4pm: The William Blake Congregation
The William Blake Congregation, founded in 1986, celebrates the life and vision of Blake with readings, poetry, song and fellowship. Roots and Shoots, a vocational training initiative for disadvantaged young people from Lambeth and Southwark, has created a William Blake Garden on Level 6 of Royal Festival Hall.Read More

Recording Blake's Poems - Recording Blake's Poems

William Blake, born 250 years ago on 28 November 1757, is one of Britain's greatest visual and literary artists. His poetry, paintings and philosophical writings are viewed as seminal works now but, so radical were his thoughts at the time, many considered him mad. Proje...ct Blake is a multi-disciplinary initiative run by a partnership of Southbank Mosaics, Futures Theatre Company, and Southbank Sinfonia, and aims to develop a shared understanding of Blake's work in the local community, and create a lasting legacy celebrating the life of one of Lambeth’s most famous residents.

There is also a series of events in St Paul's Pavilion to celebrate Blake.

Members of the public are invited to recite of William Blake’s poems, which are recorded and used in a sound installation being installed in Centaur Street, North Lambeth from November 2008. Southbank Mosaics is running this workshop with artists and volunteers to fulfil Blake’s wish to see his work enlarged and on show in public spaces. Participants are invited to help create 24 mosaics and ceramic plaques to be mounted at the Centaur Street Tunnel that leads to the site of Blake's former home in Lambeth, creating a permanent public art piece. The mosaics will be interspersed with poems mounted on the wall of the viaducts and accompanied by a sound installation of readings of Blake's poetry by celebrities and locals alike.Read More

Poetry International Opener - Featuring Reem Kelani

Friday 24 October 2008, 5.30pm

A special edition of Friday Tonic combines live music and poetry to mark the opening of the Poetry International festival.

Poetry readings and performances using video and audio, along with live visuals, reflect modern and traditional Pales...tinian culture and people. Headlining is renowned Palestinian singer Reem Kelani, who combines a mastery of Arabic language with a love of poetry. Her performance, alongside classical and jazz pianist Bruno Heinen, includes songs from her acclaimed album Sprinting Gazelle - Palestinian Songs from the Motherland and the Diaspora, Arab classics and translated poetry.

'Her diverse settings of traditional Palestinian songs and the work of 20th-century Palestinian poets show her to be an innovator with a sensitive ear' (Peggy Latkovich, Rootsworld US).

This event is co-created by young people as part of SOWF's Street Genius programme. Read More

Washing Lines

Friday 24 October 2008 - Saturday 1 November 2008

Washing Lines is performance poetry without the performance poet. Enter a darkened room armed with a torch and let the poems speak for themselves. This project was developed by Southbank Centre Artist in Residence Lemn Sissay with Emerging Artists in Residen...ce Riz Ahmed, Maxwell Golden and Camilo Tirado for Poetry International.

This installation is open from 6pm - 10pm daily, with a maximum capacity of 12 people at any one time.Read More