Jane McKie wins the Prestigious Edwin Morgan Poetry Competition

Jane’s poem, Leper Window, St Mary the Virgin, was chosen as the winner from over 1,200 entries from across the world.

Kona Macphee from the judging panel said of the winning poem: “Leper Window epitomises everything I love about poetry. It revels in the musicality of language and is magnificently concise, evoking a whole lost world in a dozen elegantly understated lines.”

The prize giving ceremony was held just before the first anniversary of the death of Edwin Morgan who was Scotland’s first Makar, or national poet.

The competition, sponsored by the University of Strathclyde, is one of the biggest poetry competitions in the UK, with prizes totalling £6,600. Dr David Kinloch, Reader at Strathclyde's Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences and co-founder of the competition, chaired the event. He said: “It has again been a pleasure to have received so many entries of such high quality.

“It has been particularly gratifying as we prepare to mark the first anniversary of Edwin Morgan’s death. As one of the outstanding poets of the modern age, he left a formidable poetic legacy and this resonates in the entries to this year’s competition.”

All of the winning poems are available to read on the Edwin Morgan Poetry Prize Competition website.