BBC Arts’ annual poetry and spoken word festival of new work is in Birmingham this September, as the city celebrates hosting the Commonwealth Games. Award-winning reggae poet, Linton Kwesi Johnson joins top writers and speakers as part of the four-day showcase taking place all around the city and on the BBC.

Highlights from BBC Contains Strong Language 2022 include:

• Nick Ahad celebrates dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson as he turns 70, and his native Jamaica turns 60, broadcast live on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row on 8 September.
• Mercury Prize-nominated saxophonist and rapper Soweto Kinch performs 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 hosts 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 will be broadcast on BBC iPlayer.
• For budding writers, BBC Writersroom hosts a panel event explaining how they scout for fresh talent.
• BBC Radio Club partners with Creative Lives to share poems written by Birmingham schoolchildren in workshops facilitated by Coventry Poet Laureate Emilie Lauren Jones.