From ‘Surge’

by Jay Bernard

Surge: Side A was performed at the Roundhouse as part of The Last Word Festival 2017, investigating the New Cross Fire of 1981, a defining moment in Black British history that claimed thirteen lives. From the judges: “startling and fresh and unique... a moving and powerful struggle for validation in the Black British community, and the poet’s own clarification of identity. The performances are riveting and the poems are propelled by a strong internal momentum.” The full performance from which this video is excerpted was the winner of the 2017 Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry.

Jay Bernard

Jay Bernard is from London and works as a writer and film programmer at BFI Flare (London's LGBT film festival). They are the author of three pamphlets, The Red and Yellow Nothing (2016), English Breakfast (2013), and Your Sign is Cuckoo, Girl (2008), and have been featured in numerous anthologies and magazines, including TEN: The New Wave and Out of Bounds: Black British Writers and Place. They were part of the original line-up for two 'Speaking Volumes Breaking Ground' tours to the USA, showcasing the best Black British writers from the UK. Jay was Poet-in-Residence at the George Padmore Institute in 2016, out of which came the poems for their upcoming collection, Surge (2019), based on the New Cross Fire of 1981 where 14 young black people lost their lives. Surge: Side A was produced by Speaking Volumes and performed at the Roundhouse as part of The Last Word Festival 2017.