In 1984-85, during the protracted coalminer’s strike in Great Britain, Tony Harrison, the well-known poet, dramatist, translator, and screenwriter, wrote the poem ‘v.’, modeled to an extent on Thomas Gray’s ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’. In 1987, after Channel 4 made a film version of the poem, ‘v.’ acquired a certain notoriety, less for its subject matter-the socioeconomics of the coalfields and in particular the city of Leeds-than for its reproduction of yobbo-slang and graffitied obscenities within the text of this ‘highbrow’ and highly allusive poem. Aesthetic and social decorum, the politics of work stoppages and unemployment, and the new demographics of contemporary British urban life-these were the subjects raised and debated by Harrison’s complex and compelling poem, when translated into its new cinematic medium. Profs. Heinzelman and Charlesworth will host a discussion of the poem in light of these issues. (A copy of the poem can be found online by searching for ‘Tony Harrison v.’) Kurt Heinzelman, Professor of English, is a poet and translator. His scholarly research has been in the areas of British Romanticism, Modernism, and Poetry and Poetics. Michael Charlesworth, Assistant Chairman in the Art History Department, is originally from the north of England. He received his Ph.D in the history and theory of art at the University of Kent in Canterbury. His scholarly fields are landscape art and the history of gardens as well as photography before 1918.