Fifty leading actors and poets from across the world will each read one of the greatest love poems from the last 50 years at the Royal Festival Hall on Sunday 20 July. The event is part of the Southbank Centre summer Festival of Love. The poems have been picked from 30 countries, from St Lucia to Iraqi Kurdistan, and there will be readings in Arabic, Turkish, Macedonian and Tamil, with English translations. The poems will include will include ‘Celia, Celia’ read by the subject of the poem, Adrian Mitchell's second wife Celia Hewitt, and ‘The Present’, read by Michael Donaghy's widow Maddy Paxman. Other readers will include Harriet Walter, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Don Paterson, Imtiaz Dharker, Siobhan Redmond, and Chris McCabe.

The prologue will be Langston Hughes (US) ‘The Dream Keeper’. The 50 poems are: Michael Donaghy (US) The Present; Naomi Shihab Nye (Palestine-US) Shoulders; Philippe Jaccottet (France) Distances; Tadeusz Rózewicz (Poland) A Sketch for a Modern Love; Billy Collins (US) Night Club;  Nâzim Hikmet (Turkey) Things I didn't know I loved; Margaret Atwood (Canada) Variations on the Word Love; Mutsuo Takahashi (Japan) Dove; Anna Swir (Poland) Thank-you, My Fate; Lawrence Bradby (UK) If Your Faith in Me Should Fail; Mary Oliver (US) Wild Geese;  Anat Zecharaya (Israel) A Woman of Valour; Karlis Verdins (Latvia) Come to Me; Doina Ioanid (Romania) The Yellow Dog; Ana Ristovic (Serbia) Circling Zero; Katharine Kilalea (South Africa) You were a bird; Ted Hughes (UK) Lovesong;  Kim Addonizio (US) You Don't Know What Love Is; Kim Hyesoon (Korea) A Hole; Choman Hardi (Iraqi Kurdistan) Summer Roof; Carolyn Kizer (US) Bitch; Nina Cassian (Romania) Lady of Miracles; Don Paterson (UK) My Love; Ashjan Al Hendi (Saudi Arabia) In search of the Other; Edwin Morgan (UK) Strawberries; Chinua Achebe (Nigeria) Love Song (for Anna); Muriel Rukeyser (US) Looking at Each Other; Linton Kwesi Johnson (UK/Jamaica) Hurricane Blues; Tracy K Smith (US) Duende; Warsan Shire (UK) For women who are difficult to love; Frank O'Hara (US) Having a Coke With You; Adrian Mitchell (UK) Celia, Celia; Jackie Kay (UK) Her; Maya Angelou (US) Come. And Be My Baby; Kutti Revathi (India) Breasts; Sujata Bhatt (India) Love in a Bathtub; Annabelle Despard (Norway) Should You Die First; Alice Oswald (UK) Wedding; Valzhyna Mort (Belarus) Love; Nikola Madzirov (Macedonia) When Someone Goes Away Everything That's Been Done Comes Back; Iman Mersal (Eygpt) Love; Sinéad Morrissey (Northern Ireland) Forgive Us Our Trespasses; Kei Miller (Jamaica) Epilogue; Faiz Ahmed Faiz (Pakistan) Before You Came; W S Merwin (US) In Time; Arundhathi Subramaniam (India) Prayer; Yves Bonnefoy (France) A stone; Ko Un (South Korea) Snowfall; Amjad Nasser (Jordan) A Song and Three Questions; Vikram Seth (India) All You who Sleep Tonight. The concluding envoi will be Derek Walcott (St Lucia) Love After Love.

The event begins at 7.30pm. Ticket details here