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Radical Alterations of the Sun

Radical Alterations of the Sun was curated to celebrate 50 years since the first Poetry International, a joint effort between the National Poetry Library and the Southbank Centre Archive Studio.

The idea of global unity is not new, but the absolute necessity of it has only just arrived, like a sudden radical alteration of the sun
From the first Poetry International introduction by Ted Hughes in 1967
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Taking place over the weekend of Poetry International 2017, it featured archival material and new work. Visitors could listen to A Poet's Guide to the Archive, a commission of new work grounded in Southbank Centre's Poetry International archives.

A Poet's Guide to the Archive by Southbank Centre: Think Aloud

They could also find out about endangered languages as part of the National Poetry Library's Endangered Poetry Project and read poems submitted in response to the library’s call out for poems in languages that are in danger of being lost forever.

Established in 1967 by Ted Hughes and Patrick Garland, Poetry International aimed to bring together poets as the ‘voice of spirit and imagination’. Since then poets have arrived from across the world. Anne Sexton was described as reading in ‘shocking pink’, Dame Edna Everage was said to have gone to the Royal Albert Hall by mistake, and in 2012 thousands of poems were dropped from a helicopter over London’s South Bank.

Radical Alterations of the Sun took place from Friday 13 October to Wednesday 1 November 2017.