"Let the Light Pour In" Lemn Sissay

Headliner for the Newport Festival of Words, in partnership with Newport BID

Spend time with a master of the spoken word, seven years a chancellor, official poet of the London Olympics, Honorary fellow of Oxford and Cambridge colleges, winner of 2024 Hay festival medal for poetry, and a three times Sunday Times best seller.

Lemn Sissay OBE is a poet, playwright, memoirist and broadcaster. He has performed throughout the world from The Library of Congress in The United States to the national Theatre of Ethiopia in Addis Ababa to London Palladium in England. His television documentaries have been nominated for Grierson BAFTA and RTS awards. His work in radio has been nominated for Sony and Palm D’Ors.

For the past decade, Lemn Sissay has composed a short poem as dawn breaks each morning. Life - affirming, witty and full of wonder, these poems chronicle his own battle with the dark and are fuelled by resilience and defiant joy. Let the Light Pour In is a collection of the best of those poems, and a book celebrating this morning practice.

Doors will open at 6:30pm for a 7:00pm start. Nicole Garnon, chair of the Newport Festival of Words will present the welcome address. The first half of the show will last for 40minutes, followed by a 20 minute intermission and then a further 40 minutes which will include a Q&A session.

Additional Information - Refugee Boy by Benjamin Zephaniah (adapted by Lemn Sissay) is a key text on the WJEC GCSE Drama and English Literature syllabuses.

Image: copyright of Ivan Weiss