Scotland's new national poet has been announced by the First Minister.
Jackie Kay will take over the post from Liz Lochhead, who recently ended her five-year term as Scotland's makar.
The role will see Ms Kay, who was made an MBE for her services to literature in 2006, create new work and promote poetry throughout the country.
She was selected from a shortlist prepared by a panel of literary experts, with the final selection made by Nicola Sturgeon and former first ministers Alex Salmond, Lord McConnell and Henry McLeish.
Ms Sturgeon made the announcement on Tuesday at the Scottish Poetry Library in Edinburgh, where Ms Kay read one of her own poems, Between The Dee And The Don.
Ms Kay said: "It's a tremendous honour to be chosen as Scotland's new makar - following in the footsteps of such wonderful poets as Edwin Morgan and Liz Lochhead.
"As Robert Burns demonstrated, poetry holds up a unique mirror to a nation's heart, mind and soul. It is the pure language that tells us who we are.
"I hope to open up the conversations, the blethers, the arguments and celebrations that Scotland has with itself and with the rest of the world, using the voice of poetry in its fine Scottish delivery."
Ms Sturgeon said: "Poetry is part of Scotland's culture and history, it celebrates our language and can evoke strong emotions and memories in all of us.
"The role of the makar is to celebrate our poetic past, promote the poetry of today and produce new pieces of work that relate to significant events in our nation.
"Jackie Kay's poems sometimes deal with challenging subjects, taken from her own life experiences, and she has a particular Scottish brand of gallus humour.
"She is hugely respected, is known for her poignant and honest words, and is a role model for many, and I am delighted to name her as the new national poet for Scotland."
The makar is appointed by the Scottish Government for five years, with an annual stipend of £10,000 administered by Creative Scotland.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here