Free

21 Sep 2025

Bradford City Library

Sustainability Panel: Shadows and Light

We live in a time in a time of great loss and great possibility. This event looked into how poetry could help us balance the two.

We joined Imtiaz Dharker and other writers to explore this era of shadows and light - of grief and hope - and discussed whether a poem can teach us how to hold difficult and conflicting emotions.

About the poet

Imtiaz Dharker

Imtiaz Dharkeris a poet, artist and video film maker, awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2014, Chancellor of Newcastle University since 2020. She has been Poet in Residence at Cambridge University Library and worked on projects across art forms in Leeds, Newcastle, London, Manchester, Chester and Hull, as well as the Archives of St Paul’s Cathedral. She readswith other poets at Poetry Live! events to more than 30,000 students a year. Her sevencollections, all published by Bloodaxe Books, include Over the Moonand the latest, Shadow Reader. Herpoems have featured on radio, television, the London Underground, Manchester billboards and Mumbai buses. She has had eleven solo exhibitions of drawings and scripts and directs video films, manyof them for non-government organisations working in the area of shelter, education and health for women and children in India.

Credits
BBC Contains Strong Language was a partnership between the BBC, Word Up North and Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture. It was supported by Arts Council England.

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Poet Kirsty Taylor wearing a green jacket performs using a microphone. Poet Kirsty Taylor wearing a green jacket performs using a microphone.

Part of BBC Contains Strong Language

The UK’s biggest poetry and performance festival for new writing came to Bradford for the first time.

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