An international gathering of poets to celebrate Leeds and the 175-plus languages spoken in the city will be one of the highlights of the BBC Contains Strong Language festival from 21-24 September. Poet laureate Simon Armitage will be there along with poets around the world, including including Felene M Cayetano, Chris Tse, Ngwatilo Mawiyoo, Andre Bagoo, Ramya Jirasinghe and Lebo Mashile. That event takes place on Friday 22 September at the Howard Assembly Room in Leeds at 6pm.

Earlier in the day, at 3.30pm at the same venue, the winner of the Laurel prize for nature and ecopoetry will be announced. Other highlights of the festival include poets Lemn Sissay, Ian Duhig, Kim Moore, Pascale Petit, Matt Abbott, Jacob Polley, Michael Symmons Roberts, Malika Booker, Owen Sheers, Khadijah Ibrahim, Hannah Silva, Cecilia Knapp and Toria Garbutt.

There will also be special sessions of BBC Radio 3’s The Verb with Ian McMillan, pictured, plus Language is a Queer Thing, an international poetry development programme by the Queer Muslim Project and Verve Poetry Festival, engaging LGBTQIA+ poets, poetry professionals and communities in India and the UK. More details

PHOTOGRAPH: BBC