1951 Festival of Britain
Over the summer of 2011, the Southbank Centre celebrated the 60th anniversary of the 1951 Festival of Britain, a landmark event which brought colour, optimism and imagination to an austere postwar Britain.
The modern Southbank Centre Festival evoked the spirit of the original, and celebrated British culture and creativity with an outdoor festival environment, many different events and themed weekends.
To join in the celebration, the Poetry Library digitised a variety of 1951 poetry magazines over the summer to give you a flavour of what poetry was like at the time. You will find links to these below. (Return to this page at any time via the "Features" option in the bar at the top of the page.)
During the Festival we were also given permission to reproduce some responses to the original Festival by Dylan Thomas and Noël Coward. Unfortunately we were not allowed to archive these on the site due to copyright restrictions.
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The