Wednesday 2 July 2014
SOUTHBANK CENTRE ANNOUNCES 50 GREATEST
LOVE POEMS OF THE LAST 50 YEARS TO BE READ BY
50 LEADING ACTORS & POETS
Today Southbank Centre announces the poem choices for the 50 Greatest Love Poems of the Last
50 Years – an unprecedented event featuring an orchestra of 50 readers from leading actors to
poets. The evening will take place in the prestigious Royal Festival Hall on Sunday 20 July as part
of Southbank Centre’s Festival of Love and biennial Poetry International Festival, which was set
up by Ted Hughes in 1967.
Poems from around the world will include Celia, Celia read by the subject of the poem, Adrian
Mitchell’s second wife and widow Celia Hewitt, and The Present read by Michael Donaghy’s
widow Maddy Paxman.
Harriet Walter will read Margaret Atwood’s Variations on the Word Love, her husband Guy Paul
will read Philippe Jaccottet’s Distances, Siobhan Redmond will read Edwin Morgan’s
Strawberries, Noma Dumazwemi will read Maya Angelou’s Come. And Be My Baby, Linton Kwesi
Johnson will read his own Hurricane Blues, Don Paterson will read his poem My Love and the
evening will close with one of the greatest love poems of all time – Derek Walcott’s iconic Love
After Love.
The poems selected are from 30 countries across the world, from Saint Lucia to Iraqi Kurdistan and
there will be readings in Arabic, Turkish, Macedonian and Tamil, with English translations.
The full list of 50 poems and confirmed readers is attached.
Southbank Centre’s Head of Literature & Spoken Word James Runcie said:
‘It has been my great pleasure to work with our team of poetry specialists at Southbank Centre
over the past year, including drawing on the expertise of our Saison Poetry Library, to curate a truly
international and stylistically diverse selection of what we see as the best 50 love poems of the
past 50 years – from young poets such as the first Young Poet Laureate for London, Warsan Shire,
to world greats such as Chinua Achebe and Ted Hughes. It was tough restricting ourselves to just
50 poems, but I think we’ve come up with a wonderfully rich and varied offering of some of the
world’s greatest love poems, which, read by some of our finest readers will be an one-off evening
to remember.’
Also as part of Poetry International Festival and Festival of Love, on Saturday 19 July, Southbank
Centre presents a dramatised reading of some of the most beautiful and heartbreaking poets’ love
letters ever written.
Wife and husband Harriet Walter and Guy Paul will read the letters between Byron and Lady
Caroline Lamb, Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Rilke and Marina
Tsvetaeva.
Ben Lamb will read love letters by Keats and Rupert Brooke.
Jason Hughes reads one of Dylan Thomas’s last letters to his wife Caitlin, as well as Ted Hughes,
Wilfred Owen and Russell Edson.
Steve Toussaint reads Flaubert, Faiz and Paul Laurence Dunbar.
Southbank Centre’s summer-long Festival of Love runs from Saturday 28 June – Sunday 31 August
and will explore the many different facets of human love – from romantic love and the breakdown
of relationships, to the harmony (or disharmony) between nations and the concept of memorials.
The festival is based around seven Ancient Greek themes of love and features a wide-ranging
programme of themed weekends, performances, talks, outdoor art installations and urban
greenery across the site.
Please see event listings below.
For further press information please contact:
Katie Toms, Press Manager, 020 7921 0926, [email protected]
Ticket line: 0844 847 9910
Website: www.southbankcentre.co.uk/love
#southbankforlove
Notes to Editors
Southbank Centre is the UK’s largest arts centre, occupying a 21-acre site that sits in the midst of
London’s most vibrant cultural quarter on the South Bank of the Thames. The site has an
extraordinary creative and architectural history stretching back to the 1951 Festival of Britain.
Southbank Centre is home to the Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room and the
Hayward Gallery as well as The Saison Poetry Library and the Arts Council Collection.
www.southbankcentre.co.uk
Southbank Centre is the home of live literature in the UK, with a thriving, year-round programme
of readings, talks and events unrivalled by any other organisation in the capital.
Southbank Centre’s Poetry International Festival (17-21 July) was co-founded by Ted Hughes in
1967 and is a biennial festival which showcases the best in international poetry, and this year
features over 100 poets and artists and includes a special focus on poetry film. Bringing themes
the festival has carried forward since its beginning around freedom of speech and crossing borders
together with the summer’s Festival of Love, poetry will open its beating heart across the site in
workshops, events, performances, installations and happenings.
Festival of Love, Southbank Centre’s summer 2014 festival is dedicated to the theme of love.
Hundreds of artists, communities and partners will participate in creating a festival that will
explore the many different facets of human love – from romantic love and the breakdown of
relationships, to the harmony (or disharmony) between nations and the concept of memorials.
The festival runs from 28 June to 31 August, with a taster weekend from Friday 30 May to Sunday
1 June. Featuring a wide-ranging programme of themed weekends, performances, talks, outdoor
art installations and urban greenery across the site, one of the highlights, in celebration of the
Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act becoming law in England and Wales this March, will be the mass
wedding event for opposite sex and same-sex couples on the finale festival weekend (30 and 31
August).
www.southbankcentre.co.uk/love #southbankforlove
Poetry International Highlights Listings
POETRY INTERNATIONAL LAUNCH – HASS, BLANDIANA, FORCHÉ, REVATHI, MADZIROV, DEEB &
MICHAELS
Thursday 17 July, 7.45pm, Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall, £12, £10
Poetry International launches with a night of magnificent poetry as world-renowned poets Robert
Hass, Ana Blandiana, Carolyn Forché, Kutti Revathi, Nikola Madzirov, Anne Michaels and Egyptian
hip-hop artist Mohamed El Deeb read and perform their work.
DO WRITE IMMEDIATELY: POETS’ LOVE LETTERS
Saturday 19 July, 7.30pm Southbank Centre’s Purcell Room, £10
‘I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett …’ begins the first love letter to poet
Elizabeth Barrett from her future husband, fellow poet Robert Browning. Southbank Centre
presents a dramatised reading of some of the most beautiful and heartbreaking poets’ letters ever
written. Among some of the most famous correspondence in literary history, these poets love
letters reveal as much about the time and their writing as they do the heat, passion and despair of
courtship.
Wife and husband Harriet Walter and Guy Paul read the letters between Byron and Lady Caroline
Lamb, Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Rilke and Marina Tsvetaeva.
Ben Lamb reads Keats and Rupert Brooke.
Jason Hughes reads one of Dylan Thomas’s last letters to his wife Caitlin, as well as Ted Hughes,
Wilfred Owen and Russell Edson.
Steve Toussaint reads Flaubert, Faiz and Paul Laurence Dunbar.
This performance of some of the most beautiful letters ever written will last seventy-five minutes.
50 GREATEST LOVE POEMS FROM THE LAST 50 YEARS
Sunday 20 July, 7.30pm, Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall, £15, £12
Actors and poets from across the globe come together for a celebratory reading of 50 of the
greatest love poems from the last 50 years as part of Southbank Centre’s Festival of Love and
biennial Poetry International Festival.
POETRY INTERNATIONAL FINALE – KLEINZAHLER, GRÜNBEIN, BHATT, PATERSON, ZHADAN &
MATUR
Monday 21 July, 6pm, Southbank Centre’s Purcell Room, £10
This year’s Poetry International festival closes with a celebration of some of the finest
international poetry. The finale event will feature August Kleinzahler, Durs Grünbein, Sujata Bhatt,
Don Paterson, Serhiy Zhadan and Bejan Matur.