Press release: EDWIN MORGAN POETRY AWARD
7 July 2014
The eagerly awaited shortlist of poets for the first Edwin Morgan Poetry Award, the largest single poetry award in the UK, has been announced by the Scottish Poetry Library. This Award is given for a collection by a poet aged 30 or under, of Scottish birth, formation or residence, and consists of a grant of £20,000 plus support for publication if the poetry collection is as yet unpublished.
The shortlisted poets in this inaugural year are: Claire Askew, Niall Campbell, Tom Chivers, Harry Giles, Stewart Sanderson and Molly Vogel. Each of the shortlisted poets will receive £1,000.
The judges Stewart Conn and Jen Hadfield commented tantalisingly:
This award represents significant and deserved recognition for the shortlisted poets. We think Edwin Morgan would have been thrilled by the new Scottish poetry that his generosity honours and invests in today, and that he might have been tickled to recognise the legacy of his own boundless experimentation in some of the poems. The originality and vitality of many of the entries and the worlds they conjure up, from flights of fancy to generating deep feeling, made choosing a short-list extremely difficult. But this and the final outcome were reached harmoniously, with the distinctive richness and rhythmicality, technical assurance and emotional impact of both winner and runner-up instrumental in getting this new award off to an exhilarating start.
Professor James McGonigal, on behalf of the Trustees, said:
Edwin Morgan always looked towards a positive future, for humanity generally, for Scotland in particular and for poetry. At the end of a life of astonishing creativity, that positive outlook was carried forward by his plan to support young Scottish poets through a generous prize fund that would recognize and release their talents.
The Edwin Morgan Trust is delighted by the number and quality of entrants for the first Award. The judges, Stewart Conn and Jen Hadfield, have been exemplary in their consideration of the work submitted, and strong in their advocacy of these 40 young writers. They have continued Morgan’s own unstinting work as an encourager of new poets.
The winner will be announced at an event at the Edinburgh International Book Festival on 16 August, chaired by Jackie Kay, with readings by the shortlisted poets – a galaxy of young talent.
Editors’ notes
Judges for 2014 are the distinguished Scottish poet and playwright Stewart Conn, Edinburgh’s inaugural Makar, author of many collections of poetry, most recently The Touch of Time: new and selected poems (Bloodaxe, 2014) ; and Jen Hadfield, based in Shetland, whose collection Nigh-No-Place won the T.S. Eliot Award in 2008; her latest collection is Byssus, published this year by Picador. Poet and scholar Meg Bateman was the Gaelic adviser.
Submission rules and further details of the Award can be found on the website: www.edwinmorganaward.com
Poets:
Claire Askew lives in Edinburgh, and holds a PhD in Creative Writing & Contemporary Women's Poetry from the University of Edinburgh. Her work has been twice selected for the Scottish Poetry Library's Best Scottish Poems, and in 2013 she won the inaugural International Salt Prize for Poetry.
Niall Campbell grew up on the island of South Uist and lives in Edinburgh. He has been a recipient of an Eric Gregory Award and won the Poetry London Competition in 2013. His first collection, Moontide (Bloodaxe, 2014), was recently shortlisted for the Forward Prize Best First Collection.
Tom Chivers lives in east London. His books include How to Build a City (Salt, 2009), The Terrors (Nine Arches, 2009), Flood Drain (Annexe, 2014) and, as editor, Adventures in Form and Mount London (Penned in the Margins, 2012 & 2014). He won an Eric Gregory Award in 2011.
Harry Giles is from Orkney and lives in Edinburgh. His pamphlets Visa Wedding and Oam are published by Stewed Rhubarb, and he was the 2009 BBC Scotland slam champion. He founded Inky Fingers Spoken Word, and co-directs the live art platform ANATOMY; his participatory theatre has toured Europe and Leith.
Stewart Sanderson was born in Glasgow in 1990. He spent three years (2008-2011) in London as an undergraduate at the School of Oriental and African Studies. He is currently a doctoral candidate in Scottish Literature at the University of Glasgow. His poems have appeared widely in UK and Irish magazines.
Molly Vogel is from Thousand Oaks, California. Her poems have appeared in PN Review and a selection of her work will appear in Carcanet's New Poetries VI in 2015. She is currently resident in Glasgow, where she is a doctoral candidate in Creative Writing at the University of Glasgow.
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