This year’s McCash Scots language poetry competition, organised by the department of Scottish Literature at Glasgow University and by The Herald, has been judged and prizes are now to be awarded.
The competition is a co-operative initiative that has been running successfully since the early 2000s and is the premiere Scots poetry prize. This year, the generous awards totalling £800 from the University’s McCash fund will be distributed between the poets Liz Niven of Dumfries, Jim Carruth of Bridge of Weir, Ann Mackinnon of Balloch, Finola Scott of Kirkintilloch, David Bleiman of Edinburgh, Deborah Leslie of Inverurie and Donald Adamson of Finland.
This year, instead of suggesting a specific theme, we decided to invite poets to write on the theme and in the form of their own choice, the only proviso being that any submission must be in the Scots language. All forms of Scots were considered, from urban city Scots to the voices of the Shetland or Orcadian archipelagos, from “synthetic” or “literary” Scots to speech-based “native” Scots, from the patter of patois to the artifice of the learned and scholarly.
As well as Lesley Duncan, Poetry Editor at The Herald, and Alan Riach, Professor of Scottish Literature at Glasgow University, the third judge this year was Rab Wilson, poet, makar, champion of the Scots language, Preses o the Scots Leid Associe and recipient of the Saltire Society’s Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun award, who writes as follows, “Thochts anent McCash poetry competition 2026”: “A byordnar collection o braw entries wir submittit tae this year’s Glasgow University/Glasgow Herald McCash Poetry Competition, ane o Scotland’s premier competitions fir poetry scrievit in the Scots leid. Fir decades, the McCash hus bin the main conduit fir makars wha conteenue tae embrace an write in Scots, an the verra healthy nummers o poems entered this year kythes that Scotland is still verra much a nation o poets!
“The staundart, content an variety o the poems entered alsae reveals a luve fir oor ain leid that in its pouer, versatility an range captures, lik lichtnin in a boattle, the essence o Scotland itself. Thair wis a verra timely entry that celebrated an handseled the introduction o the Scots Language Bill in Scotland, somethin that gies – gin it wis needit! – the stamp o government assent tae offeeshully heize up the ‘dear auld lallans’! Scots humour, wi its unique souch that hus aye bin a walcum feature o the McCash – nane o yer ‘po-faced literati’ in oor competition! – wis evident; a poem anent a kenspeckle song bi the Bay City Rollers, lent hilarity tae a warkin cless marital brekdoon as seen throu the een o a wee lassie. This wis skeelie, clevir, brilliantly observed poetry.
A michty debate wis hud bi the judging panel tae decide the winners frae the the hauntle o poems that eftir great deliberation made it throu tae this year’s short leet. It wisnae until this final pairt o the process that ah alloued masel tae see wha this year’s authors wir. Up tae that pynt the poems wir judged anonymously. The reveal o this year’s poets’ identities wis an added joy tae us aa.
“Runner-up Jim Carruth’s fine poem ‘Backs Tae The Dance’ wis a subtly wrocht observation o the existential struggles o Scotland’s fairmin communities. a subject close tae Jim’s hairt. It touched the heid, an the hairt! This year’s winnin poem, ‘Shuin’, bi the Dumfries makar Liz Niven, is a verra pouerfu polemic anent the devastating affects o war, tho handled verra tenderly in this fine makars haunds. ‘Shuin’ is a poem that is at aince national, international, timeless an universal, as aa great poems shuid be! No an easy thing tae achieve.
“Congratulation tae oor winners, an aabody wha entered the competition. Scotland’s makars conteenue tae punch wa abune their weicht in the global poetry stakes!”
