Online Events – Old

16/10/2021 11:00-12:00

Fiona Benson’s astonishing poems, shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize and the Forward Prize are searing in their intensity. Tearing through Greek mythology, power, violence, and feminism, her work is at times gruesome, unsparing and almost unbearably moving. Andrew McMillan’s explorations of contemporary masculinity, gay experience, and male bodies in Physical and Playtime have made an indelible impression on UK poetry. His new collection Pandemonium is a powerful illustration of the ways in which poetry can narrate and illuminate the most difficult of experiences with humanity and grace. Two truly unique voices in poetry – not to be missed.

When ready to stream, the link will appear HERE

16/10/2021 13:00-14:00

Poetry is a space of dissonance and reckoning. In this event presented by the Obsidian Foundation, a retreat for black poets of African descent who want to advance their writing practice, Raymond Antrobus does us the unique honour of launching his most recent publication, All the Names Given.
Antrobus’s accolades are endless: In 2019 he became the first ever poet to be awarded the Rathbone Folio Prize for best work of literature in any genre. He has been shortlisted for the Griffin Prize and Forward Prize and also received the Ted Hughes Award, The Geoffrey Dearmer Prize, PBS Winter Choice, A Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, Somerset Maugham Award and The Guardian Poetry Book Of The Year Award. He is the recipient of fellowships from Cave Canem, Complete Works 3, Jerwood Compton and the Royal Society of Literature. He is also one of the world’s first recipients of an MA in Spoken Word Education from Goldsmiths University.
Join us as Antrobus’s friends, Malika Booker and Nick Makoha, launch All the Names Given, interrogating identity, language, memory, place, and (mis)communication. This event will be BSL signed.

When ready to stream, the link will appear HERE

16/10/2021 13:00-14:00

This takeover examining eco-politics and the climate crisis is hosted by Katy Hastie and Calum Rodger of Gutter Magazine. Gutter is an award-winning print journal for fiction and poetry from writers born or living in Scotland, and featuring literature from around the world. Just as Gutter focusses on publishing energetic and ambitious Scottish writing in an international context, so too will performances by Maria Sledmere and Lady Red Ego electrify and captivate. Gutter Editor Shehzar Doja will also present on impacts of climate change in Bangladesh.

When ready to stream, the link will appear HERE

16/10/2021 15:00-16:00

What do we revere? Cynthia Miller’s Honorifics, shortlisted for this year’s Forward Prize Best Collection, is experimental and elevating, exploring family, Malaysian-American heritage, and the pull between the everyday and the miraculous. Playful and assured, her poems spark and challenge.

Seán Hewitt, critic for the Irish Times and author of Tongues of Fire, a meditative, clarifying collection which intertwines meditations on family, loss, grief and Irish myth, is as insightful as it is lyrical. These poets help us reconsider the connections between things, and the language with which to articulate them.

When ready to stream, the link will appear HERE

16/10/2021 17:00-18:00

Astrid is returning home from art school on Mars looking for inspiration. Darling is fleeing a life that never fit, searching for somewhere to hide. They meet on a distant space station struggling for survival as the pace of change threatens to leave the community behind.

Deep Wheel Orcadia is a magical first: A science-fiction verse novel written in the Orkney dialect. Push the Boat Out Festival has the absolute pleasure of hosting Harry Josephine Giles’s launch for this unique adventure in poetry a mere day after their book is released. She will be joined by musician Atzi Muramatsu for an electrifying, live-scored performance from the novel. Featuring spoken word, cello, and electronics, the music and poetry strike out, with true Deep Wheel Orcadia fashion, into audacious new space.

When ready to stream, the link will appear HERE

16/10/2021 17:00-18:00

Scottish BAME Writers Network (SBWN) is an advocacy and professional development group for writers who identify as BAME, mixed-race or POC with a connection to Scotland. Weaving together collaborative literary partnerships, cross-arts co-creation and an intersectional approach to inclusive and participatory programming, SBWN is a sector change-maker, facilitating necessary conversations around inclusive programming in an effort to address and overcome systemic barriers. In this session curated for Push the Boat Out, the team present an hour of Healing and Recovery through film, poetry and prose from esteemed writers Bee Asha, Bhavika Govil, Nichelle Santagata and Zebib K. A., hosted by SBWN Co-director and award-winning author Dean Atta.

When ready to stream, the link will appear HERE

17/10/2021 11:00-12:00

Push the Boat Out is proud to present one of the first outings for Gail McConnell’s much anticipated book-length poem, The Sun is Open, following the acclaim of her highly unusual, liminal poems in Fourteen and Fothermather, which explored parenthood and attachment beyond biology. The Sun is Open takes a new direction entirely, exploring the death of her father in Belfast in the 1990s but with the same arresting approach – and delivery.

When Roseanne Watt reads, you can hear a pin drop. Woven through with the language and imagery of Shetland, her poems are a soundscape, her precision is a revelation. Her dual-language debut collection, Moder Dy, was published by Polygon in May 2019. It received both an Eric Gregory and Somerset Maugham Award in 2020, and was named joint-winner of the Highland Book Prize 2019. Winner of the Edwin Morgan Poetry Prize in 2018, Roseanne Watt is one of Scotland’s finest writers and is not to be missed.

When ready to stream, the link will appear HERE

17/10/2021 13:00-14:00

Anthony Anaxagorou is a British-born Cypriot poet and poetry educator who combines the personal and the political to bring the injustices of contemporary British society into sharp relief. Powerful and direct, Anthony’s work – as a writer and curator of Out-Spoken at the South Bank – has paved the way for a new generation of voices exploring diaspora and second-gen experience.

Alycia Pirmohamed’s poetry interweaves history, both individual and collective memory, a powerfully intersectional feminism, and a deep connection to land and the natural world. Striking and precise, her poetry asks us to question how identity and lived experience inform both how we write, and how we read. Winner of the Edwin Morgan Poetry Prize 2020, Alycia’s much-anticipated debut collection Another Way to Split Water is forthcoming from Polygon.

When ready to stream, the link will appear HERE

17/10/2021 15:00-16:00

Calum Rodger is a poet working in performance, print, and digital media. Armed with a PhD in Scottish literature, he has reimagined 20th century poems as video games, and created crowdsourced poetry for the Edwin Morgan Centenary Program at the Hunterian. Uniquely for Push the Boat Out, he’ll present an extended reworking, via film and performance, of Rock, Star, North., a poetic travelogue set in the Grand Theft Auto V universe.

Sam Riviere’s poetry is fearless and satirical, and has been described as a kind of ‘anti-poetry’ in its rejection of so many of the conventions and hallows of the contemporary poetry ‘scene’. Riviere is the author of three poetry books: the Forward Prize-winning 81 Austerities, Kim Kardashian’s Marriage and After Fame. His novel Dead Souls sends up the entire ‘poetry business’, positing a world where the currency is poetry. These two poets are very much of the present and the future, and are not to be missed

When ready to stream, the link will appear HERE

17/10/2021 15:00-16:00

Please note this event has limited capacity; please make sure you book in advance

Poetry could be defined as “an aesthetically purposeful distortion of standard language.” To many who are unfamiliar with sign languages, the idea of visual poetry might seem unlikely. But when people mainly focus on the auditory aspect, they miss the chance to explore the other parameters of poetry. Sign Language poetry is the ultimate form of aesthetic signing, in which the form of language used is as important as – or even more important than – the message. The workshop, led by Yiru Chen, an award-winning film director, poet, and deaf educator, will introduce participants to sign language poetry and invite you to create your own sign language poems. The hearing presenter/poet will mainly deliver the workshop in spoken English, while sharing poetry in different sign languages from different countries. Everyone welcome (hearing, Deaf, hard of hearing, everyone). No experience necessary. Please tell us your access requirements via our registration form; we will have support from a BSL interpreter but please indicate your needs.

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The following events will be available as podcasts following the festival. See our podcasts page for full details

Reading and Discussion – Let’s Get Critical
Reading and Discussion – Poems to Heal the Soul
Reading and Discussion – Virtual and Other Realities
Reading and Discussion – Poetry and Class
Reading and Discussion – Is Rakim the Most Influential Poet of the 20th Century?
Partnership Event – The Forward Prize
Reading and Discusison – What’s the Point of Poetr When the World is Collapsing
Reading and Discussion – George Mackay Brown Centenary
Reading and Discussion – Never the New Normal
Reading and Discussion – Poetry and the Art of Resistance
Reading and Discussion – Flip the Script Women in Hip Hop

VIEW ALL PODCASTS

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