Our Many-Voiced Country

Our Many-Voiced Country runs at The Pleasance on Sunday 15 November, from 11:00 am to 12:00 pm. It's curated by the Scots Makar Peter Mackay, who'll be presenting new writing that weaves together Gaelic, Chinese, Spanish, Persian, French and Doric. It's a multilingual set, so you'll hear a fair few languages crossing over in one go.

Mackay isn't on his own for this one. He's brought together a line-up of writers to share the space with him: Deborah Moffat, Tim Tim Cheng, Vahid Davar, Mae Diansangu, Paul Malgrati and Jordí Larios. It's a broad mix of voices, and the whole thing sits within the wider Push the Boat Out festival.

That festival is Edinburgh's international poetry festival, run by an award-winning arts and poetry charity that works year-round to increase diversity in poetry—both in form, through collaborations with other art forms, and by highlighting artists from communities under-represented in the arts. The 2026 edition runs from 12 to 15 November at the Pleasance and at satellite venues across the city, around the theme 'The Space Between', which looks at the liminal and transitional spaces between people, places, ideas and experiences. Alongside that is a 'Shorelines' programme turning poetry towards the coast and the climate crisis. The festival culminates in a showcase of three new poetry-led performance commissions created with the National Theatre of Scotland, and it also runs the New Writers Awards 2027: Spoken Word Shortlist in partnership with Scottish Book Trust. Festival Director Emma Collins frames the whole thing as an invitation to discover poetry in unexpected places and forms.

Our Many-Voiced Country is one of the festival's daytime slots, held in the Upper Hall of the Pleasance. It's a pay-what-you-choose event, so you can decide what to give on the day. It runs from 11:00 am to 12:00 pm, on the final day of the festival.