大象传媒

31 August 2017

Contains Strong Language is the 大象传媒’s new national poetry and spoken word festival, with coverage in national and local, radio and TV programmes. It is a partnership between the 大象传媒, Wrecking Ball Press, Humber Mouth, Hull UK City of Culture, The British Council, The Arts Council and a number of other poetry organisations.

Hull 17: Contains Strong Language - A City of Poets in its Own Words

Live from Hull in a special hour-long programme on Radio 4, Jeremy Irons and Julie Hesmondhalgh perform poetry inspired by the city and its poets.

Presenter Lindsey Chapman will guide us through Hull’s rich poetic heritage, exploring how Hull has proved so inspiring to poets across the ages and why the city continues to be such a vibrant and creative destination for poets today.

Work performed by Jeremy Irons and Julie Hesmondhalgh will include To His Coy Mistress by seventeenth century metaphysical poet Andrew Marvell, Toads by Hull’s most famous librarian Philip Larkin, Hull-born Stevie Smith’s Not Waving but Drowning and Imtiaz Dharker’s special commission for Hull 17, This Tide of Humber.


20:00 - 21:00

• FREE ADMISSION |

Men Who Sleep in Cars, by poet Michael Symmons Roberts, follows three men in Manchester during one night in September.

Written entirely in verse, the film tells the poignant stories of Marley, Antonio and McCulloch.

It is also a love song to a city – to Manchester, the backdrop to the film, whose familiar streets are difficult to leave for the departing Sarah, played by Maxine Peake.

大象传媒 Two hosts a Saturday night special of performance highlights from The Hull 17, an ensemble of poets commissioned to create new work in the city during the festival, including Isaiah Hull (pictured), Asma Elbadawi, Amina Jama, Solomon O.B, Reuben Fields and Liam McCormick, as well as live music from special guests, as Radio 1Xtra brings its renowned poets to Hull.

This 大象传媒 Two film explores the relevance of Auden's work in the 21st Century. In A New Age Of Anxiety probes the peculiar hold this angry young man of the 1930s still has on our modern psyches, and what this can tell us about the political climate in which we all live.

Child In Mind on 大象传媒 Four combines the poetry of Simon Armitage with documentary footage of British mothers who have had their children taken into care. The women featured tell their story in their own words and are all part of a new scheme called Pause, which aims to break the cycle of repeat care removals.

Child In Mind paints an emotionally charged portrait of the lives of these women, many of whom have suffered abuse and neglect themselves.

Philip Larkin is one of the 20th century’s greatest poets, but what is less well known is that he was also a lifelong keen amateur photographer - lavishing on his pictures the same kind of care and attention and eye for detail he brought to his verse.

The thousands of photographs held in Hull’s History Centre give us an insight into the man who was one of the first to indulge in the selfie, and who also documented his complicated love life through his photographs as well as through his poetry.

In this 大象传媒 Four film, poet and academic John Wedgwood Clarke gets on his bike and follows the tyre tracks of Larkin, to explore his relationship with Hull, his work, his family and lovers – through the lens of his photographs.

• will come from Hull on 1 October as part of Contains Strong Language.
• 大象传媒 Radio 5 live will broadcast its live from Hull College.
• A special live outing for Radio 4's on 29 September.