A Break in the Waves

To tell your story is to create it. In this double bill, Kim Moore and Iona Lee both share poems and lyrical essays firmly written from the female gaze.
In All The Men I Never Married, Kim Moore reckons with the harms and coercions of being female in a male-dominant world. Moore’s 2023 collection of lyric essays, Are You Judging Me Yet? Poetry and Everyday Sexism, turns the spotlight onto poetry and performance itself. Reflecting on responses to All the Men I Never Married, Moore examines the dynamics of performing in public as a female poet.
Iona Lee’s debut collection Anamnesis charts a descent into adulthood, exploring truth and taletelling, art and artifice. Characterised by a deep love of language, its music and its magic, Anamnesis reflects on memory, the future and other hauntings.
In a world still set to undo and unmake the experiences of women, these precise and honest works are as welcome as ever.

Eduardo C. Corral is a poet of many honours, awards, and residencies across America. A current teacher in the MFA programme at North Carolina State University, Corral is globally recognised for his harmonious blending of English and Spanish. Corral’s poetry is a tender exploration of history and sexuality, ensuring him a well-earned place on an international stage.
Alycia Pirmohamed’s debut collection, ‘Another Way to Split Water’, reflects on so much: longing and loss, heritage, identity, and faith. Like the water which features so vastly in the collection, Pirmohamed’s voice flows and tumbles across the page. The winner of the Edwin Morgan Award, 2020, this poet is one ready to make a mark on the contemporary poetry landscape.

Push the Boat Out Festival 2022 commissioned seven innovative poets to reimagine some of Scotland’s most famous and infamous mythical beasts for this event, A Poetry Feast of Mythical Beasts. Continuing a rich, global tradition of new writing which retells traditional tales of old, these fresh and dynamic perspectives pull our selkies and fairies into the twenty-first century. With Hollie McNish, Dave Hook, Katie Ailes, Ceitidh Campbell, Anita Mackenzie, Julie Rea and Calum Rodger, expect poetry which challenges the old stories, refreshing rap, and maybe even some dance.
Each poem was supported by illustrations from our partner artists Neil and Charley from design company Púca Printhouse, creators of the beautiful map, ‘The Mythical Beasts of Scotland’.
This event has been supported by the Gaelic Books Council, the Year of Stories 2022 Community Stories Fund, delivered in partnership between VisitScotland and Museums Galleries Scotland with support from National Lottery Heritage Fund thanks to National Lottery players.

The amazing Zaffar Kunial and Andrés N. Ordorica perform live at Push the Boat Out 2022, in Summerhall's Anatomy Theatre. Produced in collaboration with EHFM.
Zaffar Kunial has long been established as one of the UK’s most essential voices in contemporary poetry. A guide across countries and cultures, histories and memories, Kunial is a Faber poet who not only anchors his readers to the earth, but sets them flying high, too.
Andrés N. Ordorica’s poetry has exploded into the Scottish literary scene. His graceful debut collection, ‘At Least This I Know’, is a journey through grief and love to find belonging: both as an immigrant person in new countries and as a queer person searching for a found family.

The amazing Leyla Josephine performs live at Push the Boat Out 2022, in Summerhall's Anatomy Theatre. Produced in collaboration with EHFM.

Poet, novelist, screenwriter, essayist and editor Kevin MacNeil reads 'On a Plane That Is Like a Finger Pointing at The Moon', in Gaelic and English. 'Fleeting, physical, boundless...' Kevin's poetry transports.

Welcome to A Break in the Waves, a moment of poetry brought to you by Push the Boat Out.
Rachel McCrum is a poet, performer, and educator originally from Northern Ireland. During her 6 year stay in Edinburgh, before moving to her new home of Montreal, Rachel was BBC Scotland’s first Poet-in-Residence, a recipient of a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship, and one half of the much loved poetry duo, Rally and Broad.
Winner of the 2012 Callum Macdonald Memorial Award for her first pamphlet, The Glassblower Dances,
Rachel’s first collection, The First Blast to Awaken Women Degenerate, is now available in both English and in a bilingual French-English edition.
In today’s A Break in the Waves, Rachel brings to us an excerpt from her longer suit of poems, Clean Sheets.

Break In The Waves Solareye - Recycling by Push the Boat Out

Break In The Waves Nadine Aisha Jassat by Push the Boat Out

Esa Aldegheri's poem 'Tone', recorded and posted to celebrate and acknowledge International Women's Day.