This year, the Southbank Centre celebrates 75 years and they’re taking this celebration beyond their base on London’s South Bank out across the UK.

They’re planning a year of joyful, entertaining and participatory events, among which is A Poet in Every Port – a flagship national project celebrating poetry in coastal communities across the UK. This project sees the National Poetry Library taking their unique collection on the road. 

A Poet in Every Port is inspired by the spirit of the 1951 Festival of Britain, a nationwide celebration of arts, design, science, technology and culture, that also led to the creation of the Southbank Centre. Much like the Festival’s travelling exhibitions which toured the country by land and sea, A Poet in Every Port will take to the road in a specially designed Mobile Poetry Library.

Over the course of 2026, A Poet in Every Port will visit 11 coastal locations, inviting people everywhere to read, write, listen to, and perform poetry. We are delighted that Weston-super-Mare is one of these 11 locations, and Super Culture is thrilled to be the location partner.

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 chosen to represent our seaside town.

A Poet in Every Port and the Mobile Poetry Library will visit Weston during Super Culture’s Whirligig 2026 weekend on 6 and 7 June, when festival goers will be given the opportunity to engage in a range of poetry-based activities and to work with Gwyn and Jaidah, so we all get to hear those special local voices!

The poet Roger McGough is the celebrity ambassador for A Poet In Every Port, who says, “May I begin by saying how honoured and excited I feel about being appointed Ambassador for such a worthwhile project, helping to promote something that has been central to me my whole life: Poetry. And not only poetry, but the Southbank Centre itself, because I remember when I was 14 being brought to London by my parents and being overawed by the Festival of Britain celebrations. Until then I thought only Liverpudlians knew how to enjoy themselves.

“As ambassador I will help promote something I have loved all my life. Helping others reach out and touch people through poetry. Guiding the reader towards thoughts and ideas they didn’t know they had. Above all else, writing poetry is what helps us feel human, vulnerable and yet powerful, and above all, alive”.

For more information about the Southbank Centre’s 75th anniversary celebrations, visit the Southbank Centre’s 75th Anniversary page. For more information on the project, visit their A Poet in Every Port  page.