New Poets Collective
Supporting emerging poets from diverse backgrounds
With support from the TS Eliot Foundation, our New Poets Collective recruits a new cohort of poets every year, helping them to hone their voice.
The Southbank Centre is the largest arts centre in the UK, and one of the nation’s top visitor attractions. We seek out the world’s most exciting artists, from household names to fresh new talent, and give them space to showcase their best work. Our creative learning and participation activities help everyone express their creativity and explore their potential.
We are the home of literature and spoken word events in the UK, and our programme is brimming with today’s bestselling authors, award-winning poetry and spoken word. We house the National Poetry Library, the world’s largest public collection of modern poetry and we are committed to finding and supporting the next generation of emerging talent.
Get in touch
If you have any queries about the New Poets Collective, or questions about your application, please contact the Talent & Artist Development team.
The New Poets Collective programme is centred around the National Poetry Library. It helps a group of up to 15 poets hone their skills and expand their knowledge and confidence.
The New Poets Collective is a free programme. We especially welcome applications from under-represented communities: Black, Asian and Ethnically Diverse poets, LGBTQI+ poets, disabled or neurodiverse poets, and poets from lower socio-economic backgrounds. Successful applicants receive a bursary of £500 towards travel, food and caring responsibilities.
The New Poets Collective begins at the London Literature Festival in October. Over the course of a year, the group develops creatively while drawing on and contributing to the rich and varied artistic life of the Southbank Centre.
The collective is able to explore and be inspired by all the art forms and cross-arts events held at the Royal Festival Hall, the Queen Elizabeth Hall and the Hayward Gallery. The cohort also has the chance to respond to the Southbank Centre’s own unique archive and history.
Lead tutors Vanessa Kisuule and Will Harris and special guest poets lead monthly in-person sessions for the collective. These sessions are designed to help the group’s members develop as versatile creative artists with skills and confidence across a range of genres, from page poetry to performative poetry and spoken word.
The programme culminates with presentations at the London Literature Festival 2025 and a zine.It also includes industry insight sessions designed to provide tools for this group of emerging poets to build their writing careers in the years ahead.
Are you a poet aged 22+, resident in the UK, who has not yet published your first collection?
Apply by 12 noon, Wednesday 10 July 2024 to be part of the Southbank Centre’s New Poets Collective 2024/2025.
We are looking for up to 16 poets who can flourish as part of the New Poets Collective. Whether you are still finding your voice, or are on the cusp of developing your work for the page and stage, we want to hear from you.
Lead tutors Vanessa Kisuule and Will Harris lead monthly sessions for the group, alongside special guest poets. These sessions are designed to help the group’s members develop as versatile creative artists with skills and confidence across a range of genres, from page poetry to performative poetry and spoken word. We want the collective to grow, develop and forge friendships together, so our sessions are delivered in person and not via a hybrid virtual delivery model.
The programme culminates in presentations at the London Literature Festival 2025 and a zine. It also includes industry insight sessions designed to provide tools for this group of emerging poets to build their writing careers in the years ahead.
Before you apply
We are looking for a group of poets aged 22+* who represent our diverse communities. Applicants must be resident in the UK and must not yet have had a collection of poetry published by a professional publishing company (we will accept applicants from self-published poets). They should have an interest in all forms of poetry, both on the page and in performance.
This is an annual programme with a new group of poets chosen every year.
* This is a suggested minimum age. There is no upper age limit.
Application process
We welcome poets working across all poetry genres, including page, spoken word, Instagram poetry and visual poetry.
We will ask you to answer a few questions about why you want to be part of the New Poets Collective. We will also ask you to submit two examples of your poetry. These can be in written form, or as links to video or audio files, or websites. You can also send us attachments in the form of PDF documents.
Access
If you would like to apply but have difficulty using a Google Form and associated technology, or have specific access needs, please contact the Creative Engagement Manager (Emerging Artists) by emailing emergingartists@southbankcentre.co.uk to discuss alternative application methods.
Timetable
The next cohort of the New Poets Collective starts during the London Literature Festival in October 2024. Participants are invited to monthly creative and industry insight sessions over the course of a year, delivered on-site on Saturdays here at the Southbank Centre. Occasionally, we may meet outside London in collaboration with one of our regional partner organisations.
Members of the New Poets Collective have opportunities to perform here at the Southbank Centre. These are scheduled in accordance with our wider artistic planning.
Exact schedule to be confirmed.
Costs
The New Poets Collective programme is free to successful applicants based in the UK. Each successful applicant receives a bursary of £500 towards travel, food and caring responsibilities.
Selection process
Applications are processed by a selection panel made up of Vanessa Kisuule, Will Harris and members of the Southbank Centre’s Literature, National Poetry Library and Creative Engagement teams.
A maximum of 25 shortlisted candidates will be asked to complete a short assignment and invited to attend a workshop, and in some cases an interview via Zoom, before the final selection is confirmed.
We aim to notify final successful candidates by Tuesday 1 October 2024.
Tutors
Vanessa Kisuule
Vanessa Kisuule is a writer and performer based in Bristol. She has won over ten slam titles, including The Roundhouse Poetry Slam, Hammer & Tongue National Slam and the Nuyorican Poetry Slam. She has been featured on BBC iPlayer, Radio 1, Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, Blue Peter, Don’t Flop and TEDxVienna. Kisuule has performed around the world, including at an array of festivals, and was Glastonbury Festival’s resident poet in 2019. Her poem ‘Hollow’ on the historic toppling of Edward Colston’s statue was viewed more than 750,000 times in the aftermath of BLM protests in 2020. Her two poetry collections are published by Burning Eye Books, and her work was highly commended in The Forward Book of Poetry 2019. She has written for publications including The Guardian, NME and Lonely Planet and was the Bristol City Poet, 2018 – 2020. She is currently working on an essay collection and her debut novel.
Will Harris
Will Harris is a writer of Chinese Indonesian and British heritage, born and based in London. His debut poetry book, RENDANG (2020), is published by Granta in the UK. It was a Poetry Book Society choice, shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize and won the Forward Prize for best first collection. He co-edited the spring 2020 issue of The Poetry Review with Mary Jean Chan. Harris was a fellow of The Complete Works III. Published in the Bloodaxe anthology Ten: Poets of the New Generation, he was featured in ES Magazine as part of the ‘new guard’ of London poets. His debut pamphlet of poems, All this is implied, published by HappenStance, was joint winner of the 2017 London Review Bookshop pamphlet of the year and shortlisted for the Callum Macdonald Memorial Award by the National Library of Scotland. ‘Mixed-Race Superman’, an essay on race and masculinity, was published by Peninsula Press in May 2018 and in an expanded US edition by Melville House in 2019.