Leisure & Culture Dundee has announced that the Dundee Book Festival will partner with the Southbank Centre in 2026 as part of the London Arts Centre’s 75th anniversary celebrations.
For the anniversary, the Southbank Centre is extending its national reach, aiming to reach one million people in over 40 towns and cities, including Dundee, across the UK in 2026 and building a legacy for greater national engagement in the future.
Inspired by the Festival of Britain’s coastal exhibition by boat and the Land Travelling Exhibition, which took 5,000 exhibits transported in over 100 lorries around the UK, A Poet in Every Port visits ten coastal locations nationwide.
Led by the Southbank Centre’s National Poetry Library, the project celebrates different dialects, languages and approaches to poetry across the country.
Taking to the road in a mobile poetry library, A Poet in Every Port will visit every nation of the UK, from North Uist in the Outer Hebrides, to Penzance in Cornwall; Bangor in Northern Ireland to Caernarfon in Wales.
The National Poetry Library will curate a selection of the collection to take on tour and organise a bespoke programme of public events in each location. In addition to this, a national collecting project will bring together poetry from coastal towns across the UK to add to the national collection. This is accompanied by a special edition of the New Poets Collective, the Southbank Centre’s development programme for emerging poets.
To find out more visit A Poet in Every Port | Southbank Centre
Image supplied by Southbank Centre