Poetry: The power and the beauty of spoken word

This week on The Cultural Frontline, Anu Anand hears from the young poets expressing the hopes and fears of their generation. American film director Carlos López Estrada explains how a spoken word showcase affected him so deeply that he wanted to share his new love of poetry with the world. It inspired him to work with young poets in Los Angeles to create his latest film, Summertime. Carlos Lopez Estrada and one of the poets in Summertime, Raul Herrera, discuss how they collaborated to make a film entirely in verse. Young poets from Lebanon and the UK have come together to write new work, inspired by their home cities of Beirut and Coventry. The finished pieces will be performed as part of the BBC’s Contains Strong Language Festival. Two of the writers, Kelvin Ampong and Nour Annan explain what they learned from each other and how they found common ground.

Zambian writer Musenga L Katonga has been working with a British illustrator to create an animated online poem, exploring the theme of beauty and chaos. He explains how he wrote about escaping the noise of social media to find solace in the written word and discusses performing a TED Talk about Zambian identity, in spoken word.

(Photo: Carlos López Estrada. Credit: Good Deed Entertainment, LLC)