Caroline Bird is a poet and playwright. She has six collections of poetry published by Carcanet. Her most recent collection, The Air Year, won The Forward Prize for Best Collection 2020, and was shortlisted for the Costa Prize and The Polari Prize. Her fifth collection, In These Days of Prohibition, was shortlisted for the 2017 TS Eliot Prize and The Ted Hughes Award. A two-time winner of the Foyles Young Poets Award, her first collection Looking Through Letterboxes was published in 2002 when she was 15. She was one of the five official poets at the 2012 London Olympics.
All Sessions by Caroline Bird
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Day 1
15th October 2021
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19:00
Headliner: Poems from a Dangerous Year
19:00 - 21:00And what a year (and a bit) it has been! Push the Boat Out seeks to celebrate and interrogate the role that poetry plays in helping us reflect on, challenge, and make sense of the world around us. In Poems from a Dangerous Year, some of our finest poets will do just that, selecting and presenting work that considers the past tumultuous 18 months. Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe, Roseanne Watt, Nick Makoha and Caroline Bird will be joined by Jamaican poet laureate Lorna Goodison (livestreamed) to guide us through poetry which has shaped and illuminated their dangerous year. With music specially commissioned for the Edwin Morgan Centenary from Esther Swift, join us for the very first Opening Night of the very first Push the Boat Out: Edinburgh's International Poetry Festival.
BUY TICKETSHeadliners / Performance ShowcasesWhereDissection
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Day 2
16th October 2021
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17:00
Reading and Discussion: Is Rakim the most influential poet of the 20th century?
17:00 - 18:00There are those would argue that Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot were the most influential poets of the last century, revolutionising and freeing up the art of verse for all who came after them. But what about those whose poetry is written primarily to be performed, especially with music? Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for “having created new poetic expression within the great American song tradition”. And then there’s the rapper Rakim, the God MC, whose complex and intricately woven lines, lyrical flow, and patterned rhyme schemes transformed his art form, directly influencing all who came in his wake, helping turn hip hop into the most commercially successful form of poetry on the planet. Scottish rapper Solareye/Dave Hook from Stanley Odd and Caroline Bird debate the merits of the above argument with video excerpts of the artists discussed.
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