Safe Spaces: Poetry with Jay Bernard and Plymouth Laureate of Words R.C. Thomas - Saturday 7 November

3-4.15pm
Foulston Room
Suitable for age 14+

Join award-winning writer and artist Jay Bernard, Plymouth Laureate of Words R.C. Thomas, and poets supported by Shelter Plymouth for an afternoon of powerful readings exploring ideas of home, belonging, safety and community.

Through poetry that is personal, political and deeply human, this special event brings together voices reflecting on what it means to find, lose and create safe spaces in contemporary Britain.

One of the UK's most celebrated contemporary poets, Jay Bernard is the author of Surge, an award-winning collection that draws on the New Cross Fire of 1981 to explore memory, justice, identity and the lasting impact of trauma across generations. Surge won the Ted Hughes Award and helped establish Bernard as one of the most distinctive voices in British poetry today. Jay Bernard was named Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year in 2020 and won the 2017 Ted Hughes Award for Surge.

The event also features Plymouth Laureate of Words R.C. Thomas, whose acclaimed poetry explores landscape, community and the stories that shape our lives, alongside writers from Shelter, whose poems offer moving perspectives on housing, displacement, resilience and the importance of having a place to call home.

Together, these voices invite us to consider how poetry can open conversations about social justice, community and the fundamental human need for safety, dignity and belonging.

Jay Bernard (FRSL) is an interdisciplinary writer and artist from London whose work is rooted in sound, poetry and social history. Jay was named Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year 2020 and winner of the 2017 Ted Hughes Award for debut collection Surge. Recent work includes Far from the Start, an audio installation at Studio Voltaire that re-imagines the Windrush; Blue Now, a live rendition of Derek Jarman’s film ‘Blue’; Joint, a poetic-play about the history of joint enterprise; Crystals of this Social Substance, a sound installation about young people, capitalism and money at the 2021 Serpentine pavilion; Complicity, a pamphlet about colonial memory in the urban environment, based on the collection at the Tate; and The Last X Years, a digital and live sound piece produced by Art Angel. Jay was a DAAD literature fellow 2022, a 2023 fellow at the Institute of Ideas and Imagination in Paris and is the 2025 Judith E. Wilson poetry fellow at the University of Cambridge.

Plymouth Laureate of Words is a creative partnership between Literature Works, Plymouth Culture and The Box. The Laureate represents their city in words, illuminating its life, culture and stories through a combination of creative writing commissions and public events. The locally based Laureate meets the Plymouth community to inspire and encourage the sharing of stories, reflecting the voices at the heart of the city.

This event is delivered in partnership with Literature Works.