A Break in the Waves

Podcasts and audio treats from Push the Boat Out, Edinburgh's International Poetry Festival.

A Break in the Waves is a arts podcast hosted by Push the Boat Out, with 30 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 81. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Push the Boat Out hosts A Break in the Waves, a arts show with 30 episodes published.

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  Episode #3

  Top Doll - Karen McCarthy Wolf and Karensa

  Jul 23, 202658 min

  Recorded during Push the Boat Out Festival 2025, this scratch performance took Karen McCarthy Woolf’s novel-in-verse Top Doll as its starting point. Described as ‘weird, wild’ and ‘unstoppably inventive’, Top Doll follows the story of a reclusive millionaire heiress, travelling from modern-day Park Avenue to the slave plantations of Virginia and the palaces of Imperial Japan via the addictive hedonism of 1930s queer LA – all told from the perspective of her vast collection of dolls. The performance marked the debut of a brand new collaboration between Karen and multi-instrumentalist and performer Kerensa, whose work moves fluidly between genres, including opera-inspired pop. Created as a scratch performance, it offered audiences at Push the Boat Out Festival 2025 an early glimpse of this exciting new creative partnership.

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  Episode #2

  In Conversation with Len Pennie

  May 21, 202643 minS0

  <p>In this episode, recorded live at Push the Boat Out in November 2025, Len Pennie joins Festival Director Emma Collins to discuss her acclaimed collection poyums annaw, exploring themes of patriarchy, gender-based violence and social injustice through poetry and humour. Featuring readings from the collection and reflections on the power of Scots language, this episode offers a fierce, funny and deeply personal conversation.</p>

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  A Break in the Waves

  The Mythic and the Familiar: Fiona Benson and Pascale Petit

  Feb 12, 202649 minS0

  In this special episode, recorded live at Push the Boat Out in November 2025, two of the most compelling voices in contemporary poetry come together for a haunting and illuminating conversation, chaired by Jenny Niven, Director of Edinburgh International Book Festival. Pascale Petit and Fiona Benson – shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize seven times between them – read from and discuss their darkly beautiful latest collections, offering insight into the creative forces that shape their work. In Midden Witch, Fiona Benson enters a world of familiars, fables and hedge-magic, allowing the women accused of witchcraft to speak back across the centuries. Her...

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  A Break in the Waves

  On Fatherhood with Raymond Antrobus and Niall Campbell

  Sep 10, 202554 minS0

  Becoming a father is not an easy process: the sleepless nights and burden of new responsibilities can weigh heavily. But amidst the challenges, there’s an untold joy that comes with meeting your child and discovering a new kind of love that can reshape your world. Raymond Antrobus and Niall Campbell have written extensively about fatherhood, love, and masculinity. Antrobus’s most recent collection, ‘Signs, Music,’ reflects on imminent fatherhood and stepping into this role, while Campbell’s collections ‘Noctuary’ and ‘The Island in the Sound’ are filled with the discoveries of what it is to become a father. Recorded at Push the Boat O...

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  A Break in the Waves

  Double Bill: Sasha Dugdale and Oksana Maksymchuk

  Jun 27, 202558 minS0

  Contemporary poetry can challenge, explore uncomfortable truths, and bear witness to unimaginable experiences. In Sasha Dugdale’s new collection, The Strongbox, recent history and Greek mythology meet. Her varied cast of characters are abducted to foreign lands, travel through war zones, and are haunted by conflicts. Oksana Maksymchuk’s Still City reflects life in the wake of extreme and unpredictable violence. Beginning as a poetic journal kept from her hometime in Ukraine, 2021-22, it chronicles events as the poet, her family and community prepare for airstrikes, as well as nuclear, chemical and biological warfare. As part of Push the Boat Out...

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