Out-Spoken: June
Get your monthly helping of live music and hot-off-the-press poetry at our ever-popular night, hosted by poet Joelle Taylor.
Out-Spoken is the Southbank Centre’s resident poetry and live music night, bringing the hottest UK and international poets to perform alongside world-class musicians every month.
This month’s edition features poetry from Sanah Ahsan, Jay Gao and Caroline Bird, and music from Saori Miraku and Simeon Hammond Dallas.
Each monthly gig is hosted by TS Eliot- and Polari Prize-winning poet Taylor, with Kemanci spinning the best in reggae, soul and R&B for this edition.
Kemanci is a London-based producer and DJ who creates and performs multi-genre club music with inspiration from Jersey club, jungle, UK garage and more.
Sanah Ahsan is a poet, writer, liberation psychologist and educator. They’ve been awarded the Out-Spoken prize, and shortlisted for the Bridport, White Review and Queen Mary New Writing prizes. Sanah’s debut collection I cannot be good until you say it is published with Bloomsbury and was recently selected in The Guardian’s best poetry round-up.
Jay Gao is a poet from Edinburgh living in New York City. His debut poetry collection Imperium (Carcanet, 2022) is a winner of the 2023 Michael Murphy Memorial Prize, an Eric Gregory Award and a Somerset Maugham Award. He is also the author of four poetry pamphlets and chapbooks. Currently, he reads for Poetry magazine and is a PhD student in English at Columbia University.
Saori Miraku is a pianist-composer, improviser and performer based in London. Her music seeks to reach beyond the everyday world into a place of stories, memories, imagination, dreams and transformation. In doing so, she invites her audience to follow her on a journey of their own, to experience the beauty and magic of conversing with their true selves. Miraku released her piano solo album Many Times on Earth in December 2023.
Caroline Bird won the Forward Prize for Best Collection in 2020, a Cholmondeley Award in 2023, and has been shortlisted for a number of prizes including the TS Eliot Prize, the Costa Book Awards, the Ted Hughes Award, the Polari Prize and the Dylan Thomas Prize. Her latest collection, Ambush at Still Lake, is published in June 2024.
Simeon Hammond Dallas is a singer-songwriter from Camden Town. Growing up listening to her parent’s eclectic record collection that spanned The Cranberries to Ella Fitzgerald, Simeon’s own music traverses genres and draws on a broad palette of lived experiences to speak to the complexities of modern life. Her second studio EP, Make It Romantic, received high acclaim from Americana UK, Earmilk and Folk Radio.
Presented in association with Out-Spoken.
Need to know
For ages 16+
Dates & times
Price
- Standard entryFrom £12*
- Concessions25%**
* Excludes £3.50 booking fee.
Book as early as you can to ensure the best choice of tickets. Ticket prices may be adjusted without notice to reflect demand.
** Limited availability. Read about concessions.
Tickets can only be sold through the Southbank Centre and our authorised agents, and can't be resold. You can return your tickets to the Southbank Centre for a credit voucher up to 48 hours before the event. Tickets resold on any third-party platforms will become invalid.
Get presale tickets
Members get the first chance to book our entire programme of events, including go-down-in-history gigs, concerts with world-class orchestras, and talks from cultural icons and political giants.
Venue
Purcell Room
Our number one priority is the health and wellbeing of our visitors and staff.
Open 90 minutes before an event until the end of the event. Closed at all other times.
Our address is: Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX. The nearest tube and train stations within 5-7 minutes walk are Waterloo (Northern, Bakerloo, Jubilee and Waterloo & City lines) and Embankment (District & Circle lines). There are also lots of bus routes with stops 2-5 minutes from our venues. For more information on getting here by road, rail or river.
Pre-booking online is recommended. Check our website on the day for returns. There’s no need to print your e-ticket – just show your phone to our Visitor Assistants on entry.
Some free events don't require a ticket. Found an event labelled FREE on our website with no way to book? Simply turn up on the day.
If you don't receive your e-ticket
Your e-ticket will be sent to you seven days before the event date from [email protected]. If you don't receive your e-ticket, and it's not in your junk or spam folder, please get in touch.
More information
Find out all you need to know about tickets, including concessions, group bookings, returns, credit vouchers and more, via the link below.
Get an overview of the seating layout of the Purcell Room by downloading our seating plan.
Toilets
An accessible toilet is located in the foyer.
A Changing Places toilet is located on Level 1 Royal Festival Hall next to the JCB Glass Lift, for the exclusive use of disabled people who need personal assistance to use the toilet.
The facility includes a height-adjustable bench, tracking hoist system, a centrally-placed toilet, a height-adjustable basin and a shower. Please visit the Welcome Desk on Level 2, Royal Festival Hall, where a member of staff can provide you with the key. You can also use the phone next to the Changing Places toilet to speak to a member of staff. The facility is open daily 10am – 11pm.
Cloakroom
The Queen Elizabeth Hall and Purcell Room cloakroom is closed. You won’t be able to bring any bags over 40 x 25 x 25cm into the venues, so please leave large bags at home.
We're cash-free
Please note that we're unable to accept cash payments across our site.
Purcell Room is located in Queen Elizabeth Hall. For step-free access please use Royal Festival Hall JCB glass lift to Level 2 and enter via Riverside Terrace.
Talk to a member of staff at the auditorium entrance if you have a disability that means you can’t queue, or you need extra time to take your seat. They can arrange priority entry for you as soon as the doors open.
Please bear with us while we update our access map to reflect the refurbishment of the Royal Festival Hall’s Level 2 foyer spaces. The step-free routes remain the same.