Jay BernardFRSL (born 1988) is a British writer, artist, film programmer, and activist from London, UK. Bernard has been a programmer at BFI Flare since 2014[1] and co-editor of Oxford Poetry,[2] and their fiction, non-fiction, and art has been published in many national and international magazines and newspapers.
Bernard's pamphlet The Red and Yellow Nothing was shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award in 2016. The collection tells the story of Sir Morien, a black knight at Camelot.[4] The reviewer for The London Magazine wrote: "Jay Bernard has created a rare and beautiful thing. Part contemporary verse drama, part mythic retelling ... Employing metrical ballads and concrete poems with equal vigour, Bernard takes us on a visual and allusive journey to test the imagination, thus putting the poet's resources of sight and sound to full use ... reading The Red and Yellow Nothing brings continuous surprise."[5]
2015: commissioned with artist Yemisi Blake as part of Transport for London's Year of the Bus celebrations. Their work 100, which featured one hundred one-line poems, was displayed at North Greenwich Bus Station between January and September 2015.[25]
Surge: Side A (2017), a multimedia performance piece that won the Ted Hughes Award for new poetry. The work was performed at the Roundhouse, London, during The Last Word Festival 2017, and was produced by Speaking Volumes.[6]
A Toast to the People (2021) Jay Bernard also performed at the Edinburgh International Festival, a spoken word event with Debris Stephenson.[30]
Inclusion in anthologies and collections
Graphic art and poetry by Bernard appears in the following collections:
2022: After Work, made in collaboration with Céline Condorelli and Ben Rivers focuses on the building of a children's playground, which Condorelli was commissioned to create in South London.[32]
