Musician Loyle Carner and Poet Laureate Simon Armitage to headline BBC Contains Strong Language 2021

BBC Arts’ annual poetry and spoken word festival of new work arrived in Birmingham in September 2022, as the city celebrated hosting the Commonwealth Games. Award-winning reggae poet Linton Kwesi Johnson joined top writers and speakers as part of the four-day showcase, which took place all around the city and on the BBC.

Highlights from BBC Contains Strong Language 2022 included:-

• Nick Ahad celebrated dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson as he turned 70, and his native Jamaica turned 60, broadcast live on BBC Radio 4's Front Row on 8 September 2022.
• Mercury Prize-nominated saxophonist and rapper Soweto Kinch performed a live musical staging of White Juju, written in response to the Black Lives Matter movement as part of a special programme of commissions by PoliNations.
• The festival hosted the premiere of a series of 2D animated films by this year's BBC Words First finalists, commissioned by BBC Arts to work with Calling the Shots and an emerging animator alumni from the BBC Introducing Arts programme. The films were available on BBC iPlayer.
• For budding writers, BBC Writersroom hosted a panel event explaining how Writersroom scouts for fresh talent.
• BBC Radio Club partnered with Creative Lives to share poems written by Birmingham schoolchildren in workshops facilitated by Coventry Poet Laureate Emilie Lauren Jones.

A host of BBC radio programmes recorded and broadcast live from Contains Strong Language at venues around Birmingham, including Birmingham Hippodrome and PoliNations. These included:

• BBC Radio 4’s Front Row and Start the Week;
• Cerys Matthews on 6Music;
• BBC Radio 3’s Free Thinking, The Essay, The Verb and Words and Music.
• BBC 1Xtra partnered with the Festival to present the Words First Talent Showcase, celebrating brilliant poets and spoken word artists from the UK aged 18-30. Special guests included BBC 1Xtra host Swarzy and poet and rapper John Bernard, who was a BBC Words First Finalist in 2020.

BBC Contains Strong Language 2022 was a partnership between the BBC and Verve Poetry Festival, and was supported by Arts Council England, Birmingham Hippodrome, the British Council, PoliNations, Creative Lives, and was also presented as part of Birmingham 2022 Festival.