13 Jul 2011 03:18:33
From the difficulties of loving Medusa to a poetic take on a John Singer Sargent painting and a tender look at death, five poems have been shortlisted for the Edwin Morgan international poetry competition.
Worth £5,000 to the winner, this is the first competition to be held since Morgan – Scotland's inaugural Makar, or national poet – died last year, aged 90. More than 2,000 poems were submitted by 900 poets from around the world for the contest named in his honour, with judges and poets Vicki Feaver and Kona Macphee coming up with an all-female shortlist of five finalists.
Gillian Andrews was selected for her poem Loving Medusa, Sarah Jackson for Remains, Jane McKie for Leper Window, Jane Yeh for Four Sisters: Sargent's The Daughters of Edward D Boit and Lydia MacPherson for Ossuary. The competition is sponsored by the University of Strathclyde and hosted by the Edinburgh International Book Festival.
"Edwin Morgan produced a body of work that had few equals in modern poetry. In the competition that bears his name, we look for poetry that carries on his tradition and we been pleased to see this in the calibre of entries we have received," said Dr David Kinloch, a reader in Strathclyde's faculty of humanities and social sciences and co-founder of the competition. "It is a fitting tribute to his memory that the quality of entries has been so high and it gives us great confidence for the future of English language poetry."
Edinburgh International Book Festival director Nick Barley said the shortlist "reflects the high quality of contemporary poetry". The winner announcement at the festival on 17 August would, he said, offer "a wonderful opportunity to celebrate the life and work of the great Edwin Morgan on the first anniversary of his death".
Morgan was the author of more than 60 books, the winner of the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry and Scots Makar (national poet of Scotland) from 2004 until his death in 2010. Poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy has described him as "poetry's true son" and "a great, generous, gentle genius". The shortlisted poems, which can be read in full here, are:
Four Sisters: Sargent's The Daughters of Edward D Boit by Jane Yeh
Leper Window by Jane McKie
Loving Medusa by Gillian Andrews
Ossuary by Lydia MacPherson
Remains by Sarah Jackson
