Six-strong shortlist for Scotland’s new poetry award

The £20,000 award, which is the largest of its kind in the UK, was established to continue the work of Edwin Morgan, Scotland’s former Makar and champion of young Scottish poets.

Award judges Stewart Conn and Jen Hadfield said ‘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 shortlisted poets, who will each receive £1,000, are:

• Claire Askew who lives in Edinburgh and whose work has been selected for the Scottish Poetry Library's Best Scottish Poems twice. In 2013 she won the inaugural International Salt Prize for Poetry.  

• Niall Campbell who has been a recipient of an Eric Gregory Award and won the Poetry London Competition in 2013. He grew up on the island of South Uist and lives in Edinburgh.

• Tom Chivers whose books include How to Build a City, The Terrors and Flood Drain. In 2011 he won an Eric Gregory Award.

• Harry Giles who hails from Orkney and lives in Edinburgh. His pamphlets Visa Wedding and Oam are published by Stewed Rhubarb. He founded Inky Fingers Spoken Word.

• Stewart Sanderson was born in Glasgow and is currently a doctoral candidate in Scottish Literature. His poems have appeared widely in UK and Irish magazines.

• Molly Vogel is from California but lives in Glasgow where she is a doctoral candidate in Creative Writing. Her poems have appeared in PN Review and a selection of her work will appear in Carcanet's New Poetries VI in 2015.

The overall winner of the award will be revealed at the Book Festival during a special event hosted by writer and poet Jackie Kay on Saturday 16 August. Tickets to the event cost £10 (£8 concessions) and are available now.