BURY is putting itself on the world map with an international poetry/art festival.

The borough is hosting the country's first major Text Festival, which looks at the phenomenon of how writing is incorporated into art, with contributions from some of the most famous UK and foreign artists in the field.

Over the next seven months, there will be exhibitions, performances, late-night discussions and some new text art commissions for the Metrolink station and riverside in Radcliffe.

Organisers say that, from advertising to road signs, from logos to global branding and digital communications, text forms an important visual background to everyday life.

The piece at Radcliffe's Metrolink station, created by Chara Lewis, Kristin Mojsiewicz and Annek Pettican of Brass Art, will contain the words "From the Towers Falls the Shadow", in neon letters. This is a reference to the industrial steeples which would have once dominated the town and also a nod to Radcliffe tower. The text will be mirrored, transforming it into an arrow shape pointing north in the direction of the parting tram.

New York-based artist Lawrence Weiner is completing a piece for the canal bridge. He is one of the leading figures of international contemporary art and is best known for his use of text in a range of settings from books to posters. His work, Water Made it Wet, will be displayed on the Irwell Sculpture Trail, on the Cricket Path Bridge over the Manchester-Bolton Canal in the town following his existing work Horizon on the banks of the River Irwell.

Many events take place at Bury Art Gallery, from March 19 onwards.

Mark Nowak, a Marxist poet from Detroit who is influenced by the music from his home city, uses sampling techniques in his work to comment on the poverty and unrest in Detroit.

Influential British poet/artist Bob Cobbing (1920-2002) is featured in a posthumous show, which brings together some unpublished material - Bury beat off several London galleries to be the first to exhibit.

A new neon commission has been made by Italy's leading text artist, Maurizio Nannucci, while poet Caroline Bergvall has produced a new sound text in Bury Art Gallery expanding on her DVD work animating ampersands.

Meanwhile, artist Hester Reeve will spend nine weeks writing out by hand Heidegger's "Being and Time" in Bury Art Gallery, pages of which will be gradually framed!

The festival has been organised by Tony Trehy, Bury Council's arts and museums manager, who has had his own poetry published in anthologies.

"The event looks at the relationship between poets, writers and artists using language in their work," he said. "There's a real vogue for this at the moment, although the ideas stretch back to Picasso and cubism, and especially gained currency in the 1960s with the pop art of Andy Warhol and Ray Lichtenstein. English poetry has gone down a similar route.

"We realised that there was a tremendous international dialogue going on between these artists, and we wanted to put Bury on the map. They've been calling us to take part in the festival, and it's generating a lot of excitement: Radio 3 are doing a major feature on it.

"It sets out to bring local people a taste of some of the best stuff that's going on at the moment, and raise Bury's profile as a place ,which is innovative and exciting."

Tony added: "Most of it is pretty easy to understand. There's a lot of humour in it, a lot of word play, and we're inviting a lot of school visits too."

For details of all events, visit the website www.textfestival.com