Festival 2024

Our 2024 programme is live! We’re excited to share an ambitious line-up that blends poetry, performance and art in a vibrant celebration of words and creativity across 50 events. With more than 120 artists, we’ll showcase diverse voices, performances and experiences that reflect, reveal and revel in the complexity of today’s world.

Some of the brightest stars in poetry, music and spoken word join us including Alexander McCall Smith, Salena Godden, Raymond Antrobus, Caroline Bird, Ella Frears, Kathleen Jamie, Imtiaz Dharker, Len Pennie and Michael Pedersen. Award-winning folk singer Iona Fyfe headlines an unforgettable night of poetry-fused song in our Saturday night gig, and on Sunday we’ll celebrate the life, art, and activism of Benjamin Zephaniah in a special event created in collaboration with Qian Zephaniah and Kadija Sesay. We’re delighted to welcome them to our stages across four brilliant new venues – the Scottish Storytelling Centre, Dance Base, Dovecot Studios and the Pleasance.

Our programme reflects and engages directly with the world around us in all its complexity and diversity; and aims to contribute to Scotland’s long legacy – and future – as a place where poetry and the arts are thriving.Thematically, we are considering three big ideas.

Disrupting the Narrative challenges the stories of Edinburgh’s heritage, acknowledging how its colonial past has shaped the city, its institutions and people today. It will be part of Edinburgh’s 900th anniversary celebrations. Its headline event will be led by Edinburgh’s out-going Makar, Hannah Lavery, in which new work inspired by Edinburgh’s Black history written by her and four other poets of colour (Shasta Ali, Niall Moorjani, Jeda Pearl and Alycia Pirmohamed) will be set to music by Niroshini Thambar, resulting in a new theatrical performance. 

The theme will include a range of other events and an exhibition curated by Kat Gollock highlighting the perspectives and voices of Black and minoritised people living in Scotland. It links with our engagement programme, in particular a project in collaboration with the young people supported by SCOREScotland, TInderbox Collective and Bee Asha, which explores what it’s like to grow up as a young person of colour in Edinburgh today.

Living Water is this year’s annual theme supporting work, discussion and understanding of the climate crisis, arguably the most important issue of our time. In 2024, we will broadly explore water (pollution, shortages, rising sea levels, wildlife, weather events, etc). This theme underpins our call out for three new performance commissions in association with the National Theatre of Scotland which will see the world premiere of work from David McNeish and Ruxy Cantir, Tim Tim Cheng and Alexandra Shrinivas, and Raymond Wilson and Ross Somerville.

Other key events include Fluid Words: The Poetry of Water an online masterclass with internationally renowned poet and critic, Michael Hofmann, a takeover by environmental writing collective PaperBoats, a beach walk with Elspeth Wilson and  Birds / Humans / Machines / Dolphins in which Genevieve Carver, poet in residence with the department of ecological science at the University of Aberdeen, will present a poetry and soundscape event responding to their fieldwork studying sea life in Orkney alongside musician Lucie Treacher. .

Finally Bearing Witness examines how creativity endures through global conflict. Its headline event of the same name is curated and chaired by Alycia Pirmohamed, with performances and discussions by Marjorie Lotfi and Nat Raha. It asks how do poets and artists continue to create art while witnessing devastation?

This theme also includes a double bill with Sasha Dugdale and Ukrainian poet, Oksana Maysumchuk, who explore how poetry can bear witness to unimaginable experiences, a discussion considering Translation as a Political Acts and a range of workshops that consider inspiration, self care and Resting as Artists.

If you can’t join us in person you can catch lots of our events at home through EHFM Festival Radio or see the live stream of the Disrupting the Narrative performance, both completely free of charge. We also have several bookable online events – click on the online tab on the programme.