Culture And Memory

National Poetry Centre: Connecting poetry’s past to its present and future

The National Poetry Centre is the brainchild and legacy of the Poet Laureate Simon Armitage. It will be the country’s first dedicated national headquarters for poetry, rescuing an iconic building in the heart of Leeds to provide a unique hub for British Poetry combining events, exhibition and archive. This project will help us to fully embed and interpret the rich, tangible and intangible heritage and traditions of poetry from across the British Isles at every level of our organisation. It will enable us to vastly increase engagement with local communities at this developmental stage, to refine our purpose, plans, partnerships, programmes, strategies and structures and ensure that the diversity of this rich heritage is represented and amplified throughout the development of the organisation. This project will help us build our organisational resilience through inclusivity, supporting our mission to be a sustainable, inclusive national centre for poetry: past, present and future.