POETRY ILLUMINATES RFH BALLROOM
\01215 October – 9 November 2004, Royal Festival Hall, South Bank

September 09, 2004 - Press Dispensary - A further addition to the programme of major installations on the Royal Festival Hall Ballroom, funded by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, is The Poetry Lounge, an inspired blending of poetry and light designed by Jo Maund. The Poetry Lounge is open 10am to 10pm daily from Friday 15 October to Tuesday 9 November 2004. Entry is free.

Created by RFH Education to accompany the Poetry International festival, The Poetry Lounge is an installation where poems illuminate and are illuminated, lighting up the open space in which it resides. It is the latest project in a major education initiative, funded by The Paul Hamlyn Foundation, that creates five major installations a year on the RFH Ballroom.

Visitors can relax in a beautiful space, full of new poems written by children and adults, as lamps and colourful lights shine over the sofas and tables and glow through words suspended in the air. During their visit they can browse books by the Poetry International Festival poets and from The RFH Poetry Library. They can also take the opportunity to be inspired and themselves compose a line of poetry which may be selected by poet-in-residence Colette Bryce to be part of an exclusive internet published poem after the festival.

Integral to the installation is new poetry by adults and young people from London and Wales - parents from Larkhall Primary School in Lambeth, members of Gwynedd Writing Squads, young poets from the Furnace performance poetry initiative run by Apples and Snakes and Spread The Word, and children from Southwark Right2Read. They worked with poets Colette Bryce, Mandy Coe, Choman Hardi and Iwan Llywd in four separate projects created by RFH Education and inspired by four events in Poetry International – poems by the great Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, contemporary Welsh poets, Chilean legend Pablo Neruda and contemporary Arab writers.

Previous work by The Poetry Lounge designer Jo Maund includes the foyer environment of The Loft Theatre at The National Theatre and the Helix Light Sculpture in the foyers there in 2002. She also created the set design for the Kevin Spacey season press launch at The Old Vic.

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Notes for editors
For information: www.rfh.org.uk
120870 401 8181
12
12The Poetry Lounge is open from 10am-10pm daily and is free to visit. Poetry International festival runs from 23-30 October and more details can be found at www.rfh.org.uk/poetryint12

12The Poetry Lounge is part of a five year RFH education initiative funded by The Paul Hamlyn Foundation. 12

12PRESS INVITATION
12Press are invited to attend the launch of The Poetry Lounge (and Poetry International) on October 15 10.30am on the RFH Ballroom.12

12FOR MORE INFORMATION
12For further information about The Poetry Lounge please contact Sam McAuley at McAuley Arts Marketing on 020 8676 4773 or email 12

12For all enquiries and information about Poetry International please contact Truda Spruyt, Colman Getty PR, 020 7631 2666 or email

For further information please contact:
Sam McAuley, McAuley Arts Marketing
Tel: 020 8676 4773
Email: