Tokens for the Foundlings: Poetry Reading

Free with Museum admission, but booking required. There is limited capacity in the Picture Gallery for this event so please email to reserve your space by contacting us at enquiries@foundlingmuseum.org.uk or 020 7841 3600.

Join us for a poetry reading and help us celebrate the launch of the Foundling Museum’s new poetry anthology, Tokens for the Foundlings.

Edited by prize-winning poet Tony Curtis and foreword by Daisy Goodwin, the anthology includes poems by over seventy poets, among them – Nobel Prize poet Seamus Heaney, the Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy, Orange Prize winner Helen Dunmore, Pulitzer Prize winner Charles Simic, and T.S.Eliot Prize winners Philip Gross, Sean O’Brien, Don Paterson and George Szirtes.

Tokens for the Foundlings, is an anthology of poems about orphans, childhood and family inspired by and supporting the work of the Foundling Museum.

Readings will be made by Tony Curtis, George Szirtes, Helen Dunmore, Lynette Craig, Lynne Hjelmgaard, Crystal Jeans, Sue Rose, Rosemary Shepperd, Grahame Davies and Mimi Khalvati.

When mothers left their children at the Foundling Hospital, they did so with tokens. Tokens were pinned by mothers to their baby’s clothes and upon entry; the Hospital would attach them to the child’s record of admission. As foundling babies were given new names, these tokens helped ensure correct identification, should a parent ever return to claim their child. You can find out more about the collection of tokens here.

This event coincides with the closing weekend of the Museum's current exhibition Quentin Blake - As large as life.