Portsmouth100: Hunt is on for young poet laureate to represent city during centenary year
Young wordsmiths have been invited to apply for a role that will help mark Portsmouth’s 100th anniversary of becoming a city
A young poet is being sought to help Portsmouth celebrate the 100th anniversary of becoming a city.
Portsmouth Poetry is leading the hunt for a young poet laureate for the city, as part of the Portsmouth100 celebrations. The deadline has already passed for applications to be the Portsmouth Poet Laureate, but the recruitment process for their junior counterpart runs until the end of June.
The young laureate will work alongside the adult post-holder throughout the year at public events. To apply they must send in three poems by email, on any topic. They must live in one of the six city PO postcodes (PO1 to PO6) and be aged between 11 and 17. The winner will hold the post from September this year until October next year and will be mentored by local poet Majid Dhana.
Portsmouth Poetry’s Josh Brown said – “We are honoured and overjoyed to be asked to find a young laureate in this exciting year of celebration and bidding to be City of Culture 2029. Our schools projects have shown that there is remarkable talent amongst our young people and led the leader of the council Cllr Steve Pitt to commission us to collect poetry celebrating the city’s centenary and to find a young person to represent the city alongside the new Portsmouth Poet Laureate.”
Portsmouth Poetry is now 10 years old and in that time has published two books of poetry, curated events for Ports Fest and toured schools. with the 4-3-2 Nomads poetry collective, as well as hosting regular events, at which performers have included John Cooper Clarke, Carys Eleri, Luke Wright and Brian Bilston.
The group’s 2017 Passchendaele memorial led to an invitation from the Prime Minister to attend the centenary service for the end of the First World War at Westminster Abbey and is now in the WW1 archives at Queens University Belfast.
To celebrate the centenary of Portsmouth as a city, Portsmouth Poetry has also been commissioned by the city council to produce Portsmouth 100 a book of 100 poems by local schoolchildren following the second run of their project in local schools funded by Arts Council England. Introducing secondary school students to poetry the project used poets, rappers and street dancers to engage with young people leading to the publication of a book of their poems and a three-episode podcast with pupils at Park Community School in Havant.
Further details are available here. To enter, email [email protected]