Jay Bernard (writer)
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Jay Bernard (born 1988) is a British writer, artist, film programmer, and activist from London, UK. Bernard has been a programmer at BFI Flare since 2014 and co-editor of ''
Oxford Poetry ''Oxford Poetry'' is a literary magazine based in Oxford, England. It is currently edited by Luke Allan. The magazine is published by Partus Press. Founded in 1910 by Basil Blackwell, its editors have included Dorothy L. Sayers, Aldous Huxle ...
'', and their fiction, non-fiction, and art has been published in many national and international magazines and newspapers.


Career

Bernard was named a Foyle Young Poet of the Year in 2005. Bernard was selected for The Complete Works programme in 2014. Bernard's pamphlet ''The Red and Yellow Nothing'' was shortlisted for the
Ted Hughes Award The Ted Hughes Award was an annual literary prize given to a living UK poet for new work in poetry. It was awarded each spring in recognition of a work from the previous year. It was a project which ran alongside Carol Ann Duffy's tenure as Poet ...
in 2016. The collection tells the story of Sir Morien, a black knight at
Camelot Camelot is a legendary castle and Royal court, court associated with King Arthur. Absent in the early Arthurian material, Camelot first appeared in 12th-century French romances and, since the Lancelot-Grail cycle, eventually came to be described ...
. The reviewer for ''
The London Magazine ''The London Magazine'' is the title of six different publications that have appeared in succession since 1732. All six have focused on the arts, literature and poetry. A number of Nobel Laureates, including Annie Ernaux, Albert Camus, Doris Les ...
'' wrote: "Jay Bernard has created a rare and beautiful thing. Part contemporary verse drama, part mythic retelling ... Employing metrical ballads and concrete poems with equal vigour, Bernard takes us on a visual and allusive journey to test the imagination, thus putting the poet's resources of sight and sound to full use ... reading ''The Red and Yellow Nothing'' brings continuous surprise." Bernard won the 2017
Ted Hughes Award The Ted Hughes Award was an annual literary prize given to a living UK poet for new work in poetry. It was awarded each spring in recognition of a work from the previous year. It was a project which ran alongside Carol Ann Duffy's tenure as Poet ...
for their multimedia performance work ''Surge: Side A'', that includes the film ''Something Said'', inspired by the 1981
New Cross house fire The New Cross house fire was a fire that occurred during a party at a house in New Cross, south-east London, in the early hours of Sunday, 18 January 1981. The blaze killed 13 young black people aged between 14 and 22, and one survivor killed ...
and archives held at the
George Padmore Institute The George Padmore Institute (GPI), founded in 1991 in Stroud Green Road, North London, by John La Rose (1927–2006) and a group of political and cultural activists connected to New Beacon Books,A Brief History of Seven Killings ''A Brief History of Seven Killings'' is the third novel by Jamaican author Marlon James. It was published in 2014 by Riverhead Books. The novel spans several decades and explores the attempted assassination of Bob Marley in Jamaica in 1976 and ...
'' by Marlon James, and ''Twilight City'', a film produced by Reece Auguiste for the Black Audio Film Collective in 1989, also inspired the work. Bernard was elected a
Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820 by George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, the ...
in 2018. Bernard's poetry collection ''Surge'', published by
Chatto & Windus Chatto & Windus is an imprint of Penguin Random House that was formerly an independent book publishing company founded in London in 1855 by John Camden Hotten. Following Hotten's death, the firm would reorganize under the names of his busines ...
, was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize in 2019, for the 2019
Costa Book Award for Poetry The Costa Book Award for Poetry, formerly known as the Whitbread Award (1971–2006), was an annual literary award for poetry collections, part of the Costa Book Awards The Costa Book Awards were a set of annual literary awards recognising Eng ...
, for the 2020
Dylan Thomas Prize The Dylan Thomas Prize is a leading prize for young writers presented annually. The prize, named in honour of the Welsh writer and poet Dylan Thomas, brings international prestige and a remuneration of £30,000 (~$46,000). It is open to published w ...
, and the 2020 RSL Ondaatje Prize. It won the 2020 ''Sunday Times'' Young Writer of the Year Award.


Personal life

Bernard grew up in
London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
, and read English at
Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...
. Bernard identifies as "black, queer", and uses the pronouns "they/them". Their
Jamaica Jamaica is an island country in the Caribbean Sea and the West Indies. At , it is the third-largest island—after Cuba and Hispaniola—of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean. Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, west of Hispaniola (the is ...
n-born grandmother, Gee Bernard, was the first black councillor in Croydon and the first black member of the
Inner London Education Authority The Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) was the local education authority for the City of London and the 12 Inner London boroughs from 1965 until its abolition in 1990. From 1965 to 1986 it was an ad hoc committee of the Greater London Co ...
(ILEA).


Awards, honors


Literary awards


Residencies

* 2010: artist in residence at
StAnza In poetry, a stanza (; from Italian ''stanza'', ; ) is a group of lines within a poem, usually set off from others by a blank line or indentation. Stanzas can have regular rhyme and metrical schemes, but they are not required to have either. ...
Poetry Festival. * 2012: fellow at the
National University of Singapore The National University of Singapore (NUS) is a national university, national Public university, public research university in Singapore. It was officially established in 1980 by the merging of the University of Singapore and Nanyang University ...
, and curated a graphic arts and poetry exhibition ''I SEE YOU'' at The Arts House. * 2013: CityRead resident at the
London Metropolitan Archives The London Archives (previously known as the Greater London Record Office 1965–1997, and London Metropolitan Archives 1997–2024) is the principal local government archive repository for the Greater London area, including the City of London ...
. * 2015: commissioned with artist Yemisi Blake as part of
Transport for London Transport for London (TfL) is a local government body responsible for most of the transport network in London, United Kingdom. TfL is the successor organization of the London Passenger Transport Board, which was established in 1933, and His ...
's Year of the Bus celebrations. Their work ''100'', which featured one hundred one-line poems, was displayed at North Greenwich Bus Station between January and September 2015.


Filmography


Films

* ''Something Said'' — screened at Encounters Festival (2017), CinemAfrica (2018), BFI Flare (2018).


Biblio


Pamphlets and single-author collections

* Pamphlet. * Pamphlet. * Pamphlet. * *


Performances

* ''Surge: Side A'' (2017), a multimedia performance piece that won the Ted Hughes Award for new poetry. The work was performed at the Roundhouse, London, during The Last Word Festival 2017, and was produced by Speaking Volumes. * ''A Toast to the People'' (2021) Jay Bernard also performed at the Edinburgh International Festival, a spoken word event with Debris Stephenson.


Inclusion in anthologies and collections

Graphic art and poetry by Bernard appears in the following collections: * ''City State'' (2009) * "Black Britain: Beyond Definition", ''
Wasafiri ''Wasafiri'' is a quarterly British literary magazine covering international contemporary writing. Founded in 1984, the magazine derives its name from a Swahili word meaning "travellers" that is etymologically linked with the Arabic word "safari ...
'', Issue 64, Winter 2010. * ''The Salt Book of Younger Poets'' (
Salt In common usage, salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl). When used in food, especially in granulated form, it is more formally called table salt. In the form of a natural crystalline mineral, salt is also known as r ...
2011) * ''Ten: The New Wave'' ( Bloodaxe 2014)


Further work and collaborations

* 2022: ''After Work'', made in collaboration with Céline Condorelli and Ben Rivers focuses on the building of a children's playground, which Condorelli was commissioned to create in South London.


References


External links

* * Nisha Jones
"In conversation with Jay Bernard"
''Wasafiri''.
"Jay Bernard – Breaking Ground interview"
, Speaking Volumes, 29 April 2016. * Astrid Godfrey

''
The Cambridge Student ''The Cambridge Student'', commonly known as TCS, is one of Cambridge University's student newspapers. The paper was founded in October 1999 and once produced a weekly print run of 10,000 copies during university term time. The publication has ...
'', 12 May 2018. * Jay Bernar
in conversation with Lola Olufemi
Housmans Bookshop, 26 May 2020. {{DEFAULTSORT:Bernard, Jay Living people 1988 births 21st-century British poets Black British LGBTQ people Black British writers British LGBTQ poets British non-binary writers English people of Jamaican descent Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature LGBTQ people from London Non-binary poets Writers from London