We are working partnership with Southbank Centre as part of their A Poet In Every Port, a UK wide project running from Friday 29 May – Saturday 26 September 2026.
Legendary poet Roger McGough joins the voyage as celebrity ambassador for this new national flagship project, which brings a mobile National Poetry Library to 11 coastal towns across the UK. Inspired by the travelling exhibitions of the 1951 Festival of Britain, the tour forms a key part of the Southbank Centre’s 75th-anniversary celebrations.
“Super Culture is delighted to be part of Poet in Every Port. Weston’s playful spirit runs through its relationship with poetry; the windows of the seafront shelters carry poems by local people, and lively poetry slams keep the banter and energy flowing in local venues. It’s great therefore to have this opportunity to raise the poetry bar further still – nurturing local talent through the New Poets Collective and shaping new spaces for poetry in the public realm with the mobile National Poetry Library. Critically, poetry has a particular power to connect people to those common emotions and experiences that make us all human, which feels like a very important super power to bring to a community at this point in time.” Fiona Matthews, Creative Director of Super Culture
At the heart of the project is a new cohort of the New Poets Collective, which has been formed to support emerging poets from each region A Poet In Every Port is visiting. They will lead the mobile National Poetry Library’s free activities in each location, working closely with the partners to celebrate local dialects and languages, and engage the wider community and public, showing that poetry is for everyone. Following an open call, Gwyneth Herbert & Jaidah McDill are the poets who have been selected to represent Weston.
The mobile National Poetry Library and the poets will feature in our flagship festival, Whirligig Festival 06 – 07 June 2026.
About A Poet in Every Port
Led by the Southbank Centre’s National Poetry Library in collaboration with 11 partners, A Poet In Every Port brings a selection of the world’s largest public collection of modern poetry, alongside free public events, workshops and poetry readings to each nation of the UK, from North Uist in the Outer Hebrides, to Penzance in Cornwall; Bangor in Northern Ireland to Caernarfon in Wales. Weston-super-Mare is delighted to be one of the partner locations, led by arts organisation Super Culture.