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What makes us love our city?

Three pioneering poets and writers of London life and history delve into the reality of the South Bank. They weigh up the story of the area, from its beginnings as a marshland to its 20th-century transformation into the city’s cultural quarter.

Hosted by Peter Finch – poet, writer and the editor of Seren’s Real Series? – this evening launches the book Real South Bank by Chris McCabe. Also in attendance is Iain Sinclair, who reads from his own work to help illuminate the past and present of the area. Sinclair has written about the South Bank in Lights Out for the Territory, and about the Thames in Downriver.

Together, these three writers explore the South Bank’s historical associations with criminality and outsiderness, and its appeal to poets like Blake and Rimbaud. Finally, they discuss what makes the South Bank so distinctive in the landscape of contemporary London.

Chris McCabe’s Real South Bank covers the area between Blackfriars Bridge and Vauxhall Bridge, and as far south as Elephant and Castle. The book includes chapters on Shakespeare’s original Globe, a night walk in the footsteps of Dickens, a stroll along the River Neckinger that runs beneath the streets of London and a visit to the site of ?the most notorious of the Elizabethan bear fighting pits. There are chapters on Southbank Centre and Royal Festival Hall, and a new series of poems about the broader South Bank entitled Liquid City.

6pm – 7.30pm

Level 5 Function Room at Royal Festival Hall

£10 includes wine

More here- LINK