‘to be an artist is to fail, as no other dare fail’ Writing in a time of global change and at the intersection of literary modernism and postmodernism, Samuel Beckett’s work was preoccupied with the failure of language to express the human condition. Resolved to finding a way for language to ‘fail better’, Beckett’s writing ripped up convention and created new limits for language and people. Join us for an evening of live poetry, performance and discussion exploring Samuel Beckett’s famed approach to failure. Can failure be a good thing? Across 2020 Poet in the City’s programme will be contemplating the role of failure as a catalyst for change.