This poetry film emerges from an act of listening: the layered sounds of Coventry’s ring road slowly begin to resemble the rhythm of waves, the distant breathing of the sea. From this auditory illusion unfolds a meditation on our complex and often cyclical relationship with the worlds we inhabit – both natural and constructed.
The film reimagines Coventry as a seaside city, allowing the urban landscape to slip into a speculative future where the sea is no longer a metaphor but a consequence. Through this imagined transformation, Coventry’s past and present are celebrated: its industrial pulse, its resilience, its textures and histories. At the same time, the film gestures toward an unsettling horizon, suggesting that such a return to the sea could only arrive through ecological and climate catastrophe.
Balancing tenderness and unease, the work becomes both homage and warning – a love letter to a city and to the sea, and a quiet reckoning with the futures we are shaping.
The project is part of the subtheme Symbiotic Futures – Ecopoetics in the Age of Extinction.
Author
Alison Manning
Alison Manning had a poem commissioned for Show Windows, part of Coventry City of Culture. Her poetry films have featured in film festivals, exhibitions and radio. She has published a children’s book, World Without Endless Sheep, and poems in anthologies and online sites, such as The Dirigible Balloon. She was shortlisted for Coventry Poet Laureate in 2023 and 2025. She was Resident Poet for Springboard Festival 2025. In her spare time, she tries to grow lemons.
