Global Poetry System is a Southbank Centre project to explore and map the poetry of the world. It’s based on the idea that poetry is all around us, from gravestones to graffiti, from birthday cards to blogs, in the landscape and in our memories. GPS invites you to take a fresh look at where you are and find the poetry that inspires you. Photograph it, video it, audio record it or write it down - tell the world where it is on the map.

The idea for GPS began with poet and Southbank Centre artist in residence, Lemn Sissay. Intrigued by the idea of finding poetry throughout the Southbank Centre site, not only in the live literature programme,or the Poetry Library, he set out to track down all the poems that were present at Southbank Centre over the first year of its reopening, from June 2007. Finding it on stage in the words accompanied by great classical music, in art galleries engraved in stone, written by security guards late at night, Lemn and his team collected over five hundred poems.

It’s a simple idea – poetry is all around us. We often turn to it at special occasions like weddings and funerals, but poetry also runs through everyday life. You are invited to put your place and its poetry on the map and discover poetry where you never expected it by exploring the site. Southbank Centre is also collaborating with partner organisations Academi, Apples & Snakes, Dylan Thomas Centre, Litfest, NALD, Scottish Poetry Library, Verbal Arts Centre and Wordquake to seek out poetry across the UK and beyond.

GPS has been developed by Learning and Participation at Southbank Centre, which offers a range of opportunities for informal learning and creative participation.