Room to Play
Fri 13th Nov, Sat 14th Nov, Sun 15th Nov
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Room to Play: DIVIDUAL returns! Originally created for Hidden Door 2026, this creative technology-infused artistic installation has been reimagined for Push the Boat Out festival. Conceived as a retro-futuristic tech conglomerate that produces lifestyle technology, the exhibit features collaborative, reactive, multi-artform work that plays on themes of privacy, observation and data capitalism.
Temporary Autonomous Poetry Zone – A Flotsam Flourish
Fri 13th Nov, Sat 14th Nov, Sun 15th Nov
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More Fun With Games invite you to join us for a game of playful, palimpsest, poetic perambulations. A self-guided and paced immersive experience via our mobile web app for you to discover detritus and hidden gems. Unmoor yourself and drift on the currents of our Dérive, wander and wonder. Perhaps you might discover some prizes at the end of our treasure trail?
Marjorie’s Table (Sun 15th)
8:30 am - 9:00 am
In this friendly morning meet-up led by Forward Prize-winning poet Marjorie Lotfi, you’ll look at a cluster of poems by one of the poets from the festival’s online programme, reflect briefly on craft, and then spend some time writing in response.
Get TicketsCreating Queer and Othered Worlds: A Masterclass with Joelle Taylor
10:30 am - 11:55 am
Join acclaimed poet Joelle Taylor for an intimate writing workshop exploring critical fabulation through a queer lens. Experimenting with approaches Joelle used in the collections Maryville and C+nto & Othered Poems, this workshop will look at how to create fictional universes in poetry, and how to explore queer identity as we build worlds.
Get TicketsTo the Point: A Workshop with Pens and Swords
10:30 am - 11:55 am
Led by spoken word artist and fight director EmmaClaire Brightlyn, this is a chance to be bold in your writing. Alternating bursts of writing prompts with basic sword work involving gentle and dynamic movement, this workshop will see writers parry words, cut lines and clash ideas. Bring your own notebook and pen. Swords provided!
Get TicketsOur Many-Voiced Country
11:00 am - 12:00 pm
As Scots Makar, Peter Mackay has embraced a mission to celebrate the many languages written in Scotland today. In this event, he brings together Deborah Moffatt, Tim Tim Cheng, Vahid Davar, Mae Diansangu, Paul Malgrati and Jordí Larios to present new writing interweaving Gaelic and Chinese, Spanish and Persian, French and Doric.
Get TicketsA Portobello Poetry Walk
11:00 am - 12:30 pm
Eleanor Rees’ writing draws on liminal places and edgelands – so who better to take us on a poetry walk along the shoreline at Portobello. Join us for a short reading from Portents and Portals in Portobello Bookshop before a gentle walk along Portobello’s promenade, interspersed with readings and discussion.
Get TicketsMigration and Memory
12:00 pm - 12:55 pm
Learn what the future of Scottish poetry looks like in this double bill with Roshni Gallagher and Clementine Ewokolo Burnley: two joint winners of the 2024 James Berry Poetry Prize, whose newly released debut collections each explore the porous boundary between past and present, asking what remains after once-familiar places and people have gone.
Get TicketsNovels in Verse
12:00 pm - 12:55 pm
Knockan, the new novel-in-verse by Glasgow Makar Jim Carruth, follows an estranged mother and daughter over a single week, while Grace Yee’s award-winning debut Chinese Fish is a decades-long multigenerational saga. In this double bill, Jim and Grace will read from their novels-in-verse and discuss the challenges and joys of this versatile form.
Chaired through the ConVERSE Emerging Chairs Programme with the University of Edinburgh
Get TicketsIn Conversation: Anthony Joseph
1:00 pm - 1:55 pm
Anthony Joseph has been celebrated as ‘the leader of the black avant-garde in Britain.’ His new collection, Haunting the Black Air, journeys between London, New York, Trinidad and beyond, moving from unabashed joy to crippling grief. Join the award-winning author for readings from and discussions about this formally daring and emotionally incisive collection.
Get TicketsTakeover: We Are Here Scotland
2:00 pm - 2:55 pm
We Are Here Scotland works in solidarity with Black and Global Majority communities to help create spaces and opportunities across Scotland’s creative industries. In this takeover, hosted by Arusa Qureshi, emerging poets Pepita Mwanga, Chisom Okoronkwo, and ACE V!S!ON take to the stage for a showcase of soul-stirring poetry and music.
Get TicketsPenelope’s Craft: an Online Reading
2:00 pm - 3:00 pm
In penelope’s cra()ft: a post-epic, acclaimed German poet Ulrike Draesner sees Penelope, Odysseus’ wife, take to the sea alongside 100 other women from Ithaca. Join Ulrike and prize-winning translator Karen Leeder for a sneak peek into this energetic, tender and inventive book in translation, and to discuss re-writing and subverting myths.
Get TicketsRevisiting the Epic
2:00 pm - 2:55 pm
Christopher Nolan’s film of The Odyssey ignited a surprisingly hot debate around the interpretation of classical epics. Join researcher James Oakley and poets Cai Tianxin and Spencer Mason to discuss the epic form: its orality, tropes and enduring popularity.
Chaired through the ConVERSE Emerging Chairs Programme with the University of Edinburgh
Get TicketsIn Conversation: Naomi Shihab Nye
3:00 pm - 3:55 pm
Don’t miss this rare opportunity to hear Palestinian-American poet Naomi Shihab Nye read live! Join the former Young People’s Poet Laureate for the USA, in conversation with Alycia Pirmohamed, for a mixture of readings and discussion of her work, which is by turns humorous, immediate and urgently political.
Get TicketsFinding the Frequency of Magic: A Poetry Masterclass with Anthony Joseph
3:15 pm - 4:45 pm
Join award-winning poet, novelist and musician Anthony Joseph for an ‘ear-training’ workshop for poets, exploring how sound and layers of meaning work together to create depth and mystery in poetry.
Get TicketsSea Shanties for Sirens and Landlubbers
4:00 pm - 4:55 pm
Whether you’re an experienced siren or you swear up and down you can’t carry a tune, don’t miss this lively session run by Edinburgh Shanty Co! No experience is necessary – come along to learn and sing some sea shanties, both traditional and original.
Get TicketsStrange Architecture
4:00 pm - 4:55 pm
In 2025, Kevin P. Gilday spent two months in Prague, writing a poetry cycle inspired by the city’s brutalist buildings. Kevin will read from these alongside JL Williams, whose new collection, Strange Architectures, details her nightly dreams of buildings during lockdown. Both poets reflect on how the spaces we inhabit inform our lives.
Get TicketsObsidian Foundation Online Showcase
4:15 pm - 5:15 pm
This online showcase brings together four brilliant poets from the Obsidian Foundation community. Hosted by Nick Makoha, we’ll hear from Gemma Bedeau, Aphra Le Levier-Bennett, Ed Mabrey and Maureen Onwunali. We’ll discuss the poets’ journeys, their work and the role of community, mentorship and development in their creative practice.
Get TicketsThe Space Between – New Poetic Performances
5:00 pm - 6:15 pm
We’re thrilled to premiere three new commissions in association with the National Theatre of Scotland. Investigating the theme of ‘The Space Between’, these inventive performances by Gray Crosbie and Guy Woods, Catherine Street and Nancy Burns, and Sunnah Khan explore poetry in conversation with sound design, archives and film.
Get TicketsCelebrating the Troublemaker: A Workshop
6:00 pm - 7:30 pm
In this online workshop, aimed at anyone interested in writing family stories or social histories, Annemarie Ní Churreáin will help us to explore the challenges and responsibilities of writing hidden and obscured histories, alongside the role that folklore, magic and the Otherworld can play in our work.
Get TicketsBàird Bhaile: Gaelic Poetry and Song Night
6:00 pm - 7:50 pm
A night of poetry, music and song with poets Ceitidh Chaimbeul, babs nigriogair and Martin MacIntyre, fiddler Rona Wilkie and MC Màiri Britton. We’ll be exploring the theme of this year’s festival through the concept of “stairsnichean” (thresholds). Join us to listen to voices from the Gaelic community.
Get TicketsRock the Boat
6:30 pm - 8:00 pm
Join hosts Catherine Wilson Garry and Julia Sorensen for the festival edition of Rock the Boat, PTBO’s longstanding monthly poetry open mic. Sign up in advance to perform your poetry alongside a score of other open mic-ers or kick back and enjoy the vibes. With feature poets Amy B. Moreno and Sol Vardi.
Get TicketsOn Slack Tide, with Aurora Engine, JL Williams, Dean Atta and Kirsty Logan
8:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Definition: the brief period at the turn of the tide when the water is still. This specially commissioned collaboration from musician Aurora Engine and poets JL Williams, Dean Atta and Kirsty Logan fuses music, voice, electronica, poetry and performance in a singular, striking soundscape. It explores life transitions of birth, coming of age and death; and the waiting, stasis and flurries of emotion that accompany them.
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