Sep 28, 2026 · 45 min · 12 segments
In front of an audience at the Contains Strong Language Festival in Salford Tom Sutcliffe is joined by three guests to celebrate poetry ancient and new and to explore the latest innovations in hearing…
Tom SutcliffeHost
Simon ArmitageGuestTrevor CoxGuest
Jade CuttleGuestOne of the powerful things colleagues have done to get people to think about how places sound is to go on a simple sound walk.
If you were to walk outside here in Media City, you'd probably be surprised by how much you can hear.
Now, not much of that's going to take you back in time, but it's certainly going to give you that escape and that sense of thinking about the detail of life rather than worrying about... what's happening in the news at the moment.
Simon, I wanted to ask you, I'm reminded of this by a little detail in Gilgamesh, which is, I think Enkidu also engages in, it's a slightly misogynist passage in the poem.
But it's full of those little, again, those little details like the description of the ramparts as straight as a woolen thread.
The line about the woolen thread has been translated and interpreted in so many different ways.
the city-state at the time, but it's been translated very differently by different people.
And of course, the owl in that moment in the curse, it could have been because of mythological associations, the owl was often seen as a harbinger of doom and bad fortune.
Yeah, I'm being rather banal and just thinking you would not get a good night's sleep if you've got an owl in your room.
One of the powerful things colleagues have done to get people to think about how places sound is to go on a simple sound walk.
If you were to walk outside here in Media City, you'd probably be surprised by how much you can hear.
Now, not much of that's going to take you back in time, but it's certainly going to give you that escape and that sense of thinking about the detail of life rather than worrying about... what's happening in the news at the moment.
Simon, I wanted to ask you, I'm reminded of this by a little detail in Gilgamesh, which is, I think Enkidu also engages in, it's a slightly misogynist passage in the poem.
But it's full of those little, again, those little details like the description of the ramparts as straight as a woolen thread.
The line about the woolen thread has been translated and interpreted in so many different ways.
the city-state at the time, but it's been translated very differently by different people.
And of course, the owl in that moment in the curse, it could have been because of mythological associations, the owl was often seen as a harbinger of doom and bad fortune.
Yeah, I'm being rather banal and just thinking you would not get a good night's sleep if you've got an owl in your room.
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