Check out the shortlist for the Edwin Morgan Poetry Competition

The summer of outstanding poetry continues with the announcement of the shortlist for the Edwin Morgan Poetry Competition, chosen this year by Vicki Feaver and Kona MacPhee, both of whom have appeared recently at StAnza. The shortlisted poets are Gill Andrews (above), Sarah Jackson, Lydia MacPherson, Jane McKie and Jane Yeh. The poets on the Commended list are Aileen Ballantyne, Ian Crockatt, Paula Cunningham, Sarah Jackson and Helen Mort. You can read the poems and the judges’ comments on the competition website,  and vote for your favourite from both lists. The results will be announced at a special event on 17th August during the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

Competition season?

Hamish Whyte reading at StAnza 2010

And yet more poetry competition news.  Warmest congratulations to Anna Crowe, StAnza Trustee and first Artistic Director, whose pamphlet, Figure in Landscape, yesterday won her publishers Mariscat Press the 2011 Callum Macdonald Memorial Award for an outstanding example of pamphlet poetry publishing. Anna and Mariscat’s Hamish Whyte were both present yesterday evening at the award ceremony at the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh when Hamish received the Callum Macdonald Quaich and a cheque for £750. Anna gets the honour of being Michael Marks Poet in Residence at the Harvard Centre for Hellenic Studies in Greece for two weeks in July.  The runner up was JoAnne Mackay for her pamphlet Venti, and also shortlisted were: An Illustrated Book About Birds by Anna Davis, published by Anna Davis; Countervailing by David Betteridge, published by Rhizome Press; Lost at Sea by Jean Atkin, published by Roncadora Press; and Threading a Viking by Sheena Berry, published by Sheena Watson.

So one competition ‘declared’ but more to come.  There are a few weeks left to submit entries to the 2011 Edwin Morgan Poetry Competition, deadline 10^th June.  And in an innovation this year, the winners and winning poems will be announced and published on the competition website in late July, in advance of the August prize-giving at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. Prize positions will not be revealed until the award event but the public will have the chance to make their own guesses as to which is the winning poem.