The National Poetry Library is a free public collection housed at

Royal Festival Hall The Royal Festival Hall is a 2,700-seat concert, dance and talks venue within Southbank Centre in London, England. It is situated on the South Bank of the River Thames, not far from Hungerford Bridge, in the London Borough of Lambeth. It is a G ...

in London's

Southbank Centre Southbank Centre is an arts centre in London, England. It is adjacent to the separately owned National Theatre and BFI Southbank. It comprises the three main performance spaces – the Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, and Purcell R ...

. Situated on the fifth floor of the Royal Festival Hall, overlooking the river

Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after th ...

, the library aims to hold all contemporary UK poetry publications since 1912. It houses the largest collection in Britain, numbering over 200,000 items, including works by small presses. It also holds audio and video materials, critical texts and works for children for loan and reference. The library contains work by non-UK poets and publishers and press cuttings are also archived for members' research. Membership is free and material is borrowed through the national inter-lending library services or returned by post.Poetry Library official site
/ref>"Welcome back, Poetry Library" 5 July 2007, ''Guardian''
/ref>Valencia, Miriam, "The Poetry Library"
'' NATE Classroom'' Spring 2008 Volume/issue: No. 4 The library provides support for schools nationally and locally. The venue has an exhibition and event space.

History and future plans

The library was established in 1953 on the recommendation of the Poetry Panel of the

Arts Council of Great Britain The Arts Council of Great Britain was a non-departmental public body dedicated to the promotion of the fine arts in Great Britain. It was divided in 1994 to form the Arts Council of England (now Arts Council England), the Scottish Arts Council (l ...

, with the remit of promoting modern and contemporary poetry. Opened by poets

TS Eliot Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist and playwright.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National Biography''. New York: Oxford University ...

and

Herbert Read Sir Herbert Edward Read, (; 4 December 1893 – 12 June 1968) was an English art historian, poet, literary critic and philosopher, best known for numerous books on art, which included influential volumes on the role of art in education. Read wa ...

, the library quickly grew beyond the capacity of premises and then the next, moving from

Albemarle Street Albemarle Street is a street in Mayfair in central London, off Piccadilly. It has historic associations with George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, Lord Byron, whose publisher John Murray (publishing house), John Murray was based here, and Oscar ...

Piccadilly Piccadilly () is a road in the City of Westminster, London, England, to the south of Mayfair, between Hyde Park Corner in the west and Piccadilly Circus in the east. It is part of the A4 road (England), A4 road that connects central London to ...

, to

Long Acre Long Acre is a street in the City of Westminster in central London. It runs from St Martin's Lane, at its western end, to Drury Lane in the east. The street was completed in the early 17th century and was once known for its Coach_(carriage), co ...

Covent Garden Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist sit ...

and then to a larger space back in Piccadilly. It has been located at the Royal Festival Hall since 1988, when

Seamus Heaney Seamus Justin Heaney (13 April 1939 – 30 August 2013) was an Irish Irish poetry, poet, playwright and translator. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. Among his best-known works is ''Death of a Naturalist'' (1966), his first m ...

opened the new venue. With the relocation, the library was given the Signal Poetry Collection of children's poetry books which had been held by Book House. This formed the basis for the library's body of works for children and young adults, available for loan and reference. The beech furniture was designed for the site by Terrance Conran. The library was closed from 2005 to 2007 during refurbishment of the Festival Hall building. Its re-opening was celebrated with London's first festival of literature. Commentators on BBC's Radio 4 have described it as one of the world's greatest libraries."Southbank to Host London's First Festival of Literature", ''London Evening Standard'' 17 May 2007 Many poets and editors have developed their collections and anthologies at the Poetry Library, including Poet Laureate

Ted Hughes Edward James Hughes (17 August 1930 – 28 October 1998) was an English poet, translator, and children's writer. Critics frequently rank him as one of the best poets of his generation and one of the twentieth century's greatest writers. He wa ...

. He worked on the ''Rattle Bag'' anthology at the library during the 1970s, writing of the experience:

Very strange experience, squeezing every morning into modern poetry, and sitting in there all day all curled up with book clamped over mouth inhaling deeply, then coming out in the five or six o clock dark. Many other poets find their inspiration in the library. It's truly a place where poets and readers meet. As well as poets laureate, though, we see school students, families with young children, casual readers, critics, academics, teachers and artists 'squeezing every morning into modern poetry.Valencia, Miriam, "Poetry at Southbank Centre"
'' NATE Classroom'', Spring 2011 Volume/issue: No. 13

Poet

Philip Larkin Philip Arthur Larkin (9 August 1922 – 2 December 1985) was an English poet, novelist, and librarian. His first book of poetry, '' The North Ship'', was published in 1945, followed by two novels, '' Jill'' (1946) and '' A Girl in Winter'' (194 ...

was a vocal supporter. He wrote "The Poetry Library is one of the occasional pure flowerings of the imagination for which the English are so seldom given credit". Poet Laureate

Andrew Motion Sir Andrew Peter Motion (born 26 October 1952) is an English poet, novelist, and biographer, who was Poet Laureate from 1999 to 2009. During the period of his laureateship, Motion founded the Poetry Archive, an online resource of poems and a ...

echoes Larkin's sentiments: "The most extraordinary thing, is the fact that it exists at all. As Larkin said, it's the kind of thing that you don't expect England to do. It flies in the face of the way we generally run things, ie neglect things. I used it a lot when I was doing the ''Here to Eternity'' anthology. The stock is extremely good and very catholic – and the ancillary services, such as quote-checking, are wonderful." "Live poets society"
''The Independent'' 10 May 2003 The library has a bronze bust of

Dylan Thomas Dylan Marlais Thomas (27 October 1914 – 9 November 1953) was a Welsh poet and writer, whose works include the poems " Do not go gentle into that good night" and " And death shall have no dominion", as well as the "play for voices" ''Un ...

by Hugh Oloff de Wet.

References

External links

The Poetry Library
website
Poetry Magazines
hosted by The Poetry Library

''The Independent'' 10 May 2003
Global Poetry System
at the Southbank. GPS {{Authority control Southbank Centre Arts centres in London Buildings and structures in the London Borough of Lambeth Libraries in the London Borough of Lambeth 1953 establishments in England National libraries