MAKARS and scrievers tak tent: this year's James McCash Scots Poetry Competition is officially announced today.

Run jointly by The Herald and Glasgow University, it offers generous prize money, totalling £1500.

The first prize is £750, the second £350, and the third £200. There is also a prize of £200 for the best entry from a poet aged 17 or under, and submissions from this young age group are particularly encouraged.

The competition, now in its eleventh year as a collaboration between newspaper and university, aims to encourage and celebrate Lowland Scots in its many forms and permutations, from the classical cadences of the Renaissance masters to contemporary city patois; from MacDiarmid's Lallans to all regional variants of the language.

The prize, endowed by the Scots engineer James McCash, himself the winner of a Herald poetry competition in the 1970s, reflects the continued vitality of Scots, with it rich inheritance of vocabulary and idiom.

As the 2014 referendum looms, these are fascinating times politically for Scotland. But whether voters opt for independence or the status quo, there is certainly a new confidence in the nation's cultural heritage, not least its traditional language. This background sharpens the competition's significance.

There is no set theme this year. Entrants may send up to three original, unpublished poems, no more than 30 lines long, and in any form from sonnet to free verse.

Entries should be clearly printed, typed, or written on one side of A4 paper, with name, address, and contact details on the reverse, and sent to Lesley Duncan, The Herald, 200 Renfield Street, Glasgow, G2 3QB, to arrive no later than August 31.

Overseas entries may be submitted by email, in the body of the text, to lesley.duncan@heraldandtimes.co.uk.

The judges are Nigel Leask, Regius Professor of English Language and Literature at Glasgow University; Alan Riach, Professor of Scottish Literature at the university; and myself.

The Smeddum Test, an anthology of the best entries to the McCash Competition, 2003-2012 (Kennedy and Boyd, £12.95), will be celebrated at a literary event in the National Library of Scotland on Wednesday.

As for this year competition: Makars, dinnae be blate aboot sendin in yir scrievins.