Tongue and Talk: The Dialect Poets

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Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media: Arts

Series exploring dialect poetry in different parts of the UK.

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Tongue and Talk: The Dialect Poets: Liverpool

Liverpool

BBC Radio 4 - Tongue and Talk: The Dialect Poets, Liverpool

Writer and actor Catherine Harvey visits Liverpool to soak up the Merseyside dialect.

Writer and actor Catherine Harvey visits Liverpool to soak up the poetry and dialect found on Merseyside.

Actor and writer Catherine Harvey explores the poetry and language of Liverpool to find out what it means to be a Dicky Sam, a Whacker, a Liverpudlian or a Scouser.

In the remains of the world’s first commercial wet dock (now deep beneath a shopping centre) Catherine discovers how a cluster of streets next to a muddy pool became a vibrant cultural melting pot, and asks linguist Tony Crowley about the impact of the Port on what Thomas De Quincey once called ‘the many-languaged town of Liverpool’.

From the burial pits of St Patrick’s Church, the resting place of thousands who died in past epidemics, to the Everyman Theatre where live poetry events continue the legacy of The Mersey Sound, we hear from some of Liverpool’s contemporary poets, including Amina Atiq, Jennifer Lee Tsai, Greg Quiery and Levi Tafari. But are the myths about Liverpool’s linguistic history true? And what makes the dialect and identity of this diverse community so unique? 

The other areas visited in this series of Tongue and Talk: The Dialect Poets are Hull, Portsmouth and Cornwall.

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