We are partnering with Coventry City of Culture, bringing together local and international artists who have been collaborating through our Youthful Cities and DigiPoems programmes. 

YOUTHFUL CITIES: COVENTRY X BEIRUT 

As part of the Youthful Cities programme, we are working with Coventry City of Culture Trust to connect local partners and young people from Coventry and Beirut (Lebanon) to respond to important, urgent and youth-focused issues in their cities through poetry and spoken word. 

At the upcoming BBC Contains Strong Language Poetry & Performance Festival (23 – 26 September 2021) see how these young creatives have come together to create the performance piece, Coventry x Beirut: Transnational Lag Express. 

As part of this event, twelve writers and artists from Coventry and Beirut explore personal and collective journeys in an amalgamation of poetry, dance, spoken word, live performance and video, as they embark on a fictional train ride from Coventry to Beirut and back again. 

At its height, Lebanon had about 408 km of railway. Yet today, although traces remain, none operate. In the UK, privatised railways are hardly accessible to everyone.

Beyond the physicality, for both cities, trains address questions of ownership, hope, home, youth, stigma, and what their future holds (or doesn’t). The performance presents the collective hive mind the global youth participates in across national borders and explores how their cities and youth have shaped the world they share.

SUN 26 SEPT
THE BOX AT FARGO VILLAGE (COVENTRY) AND LIVE STREAMED 
15:00 
FREE but booking required
Online: The event will be livestreamed at www.writingwestmidlands.org/livestream 
 
A recording of Coventry x Beirut: Transnational Lag Express will also be broadcast on BBC World Service - Thue Cultural Fronline on Saturday 25 September at www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct1pt5
 

DIGIPOEMS 

As part of Coventry City of Culture, we have also supported DigiPoems by uniting Coventry poets with poets and digital / film artists in Southern Africa, forging connections, cross-continental creative conversations and a series of poetry films. 

DigiPoems has brought together leading poets from the flourishing poetry scenes in Southern Africa and Coventry to collaborate on new digital film poems. The poets collaborated with digital artists on the 90 second films, which explore topics relevant to young creative people today: from finding peace in our technology-driven lives, to finding strength to keep going in difficult times, as well as seeking, and losing, love.

As well as new commissions, the poets and artists have engaged in a series of international performance, networking and skills sharing sessions, helping to create bonds and strengthen the sectors between Southern Africa and Coventry. The DigiPoems films and poets will be featured at BBC Contains Strong Language festival in September 2021. The DigiPoems films can be watched here.

Through a special Contains Strong Language edition of Coventry’s regular Fire & Dust open mic, you can watch a short extract from the DigiPoem films, see live performances and join an in-conversation with the writers. 

SUN 26 SEPT
THE BOX AT FARGO VILLAGE (COVENTRY) AND LIVE STREAMED
19:00 - 21:00
FREE but booking required 
Online: The event will be livestreamed at www.writingwestmidlands.org/livestream  
 

DigiPoems artists will also be featured at the following post festival events:

BEAUTY AND CHAOS, A DigiPoems installation
18-31 October
ARCADIA GALLERY SPACE (COVENTRY) AND LIVE STREAMED 
Details to follow
 
SAT 30 OCT 
COVENTRY UNIVERSITY
10:00
FREE but booking required

Creatives from both Youthful Cities and DigiPoems will also come together to discuss how they have been using their creative practice to explore their lives and the lives of their cities. The event will feature young writers, poets and spoken word artists from Coventry, Beirut, Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

SUN 26 SEPT
THE BOX AT FARGO VILLAGE
13:00 - 14:00
FarGo Village, Far Gosford Street,
Coventry CV1 5ED
FREE but booking required
 

Youthful Cities is a Coventry City of Culture project in partnership with the British Council. DigiPoems is a partnership between Writing West Midlands, British Council, Coventry City of Culture Trust, Comexposed and Page Poetry Alive project.