The Herald features poetry every day. We also have the pleasure, on National Poetry Day, to announce the winner of the 2020 James McCash Scots Poetry Prize, one of the premier awards in the Scottish literary calendar.
Sheila Templeton of Glasgow, wins £500 for her poem, The Clyack Shafe (meaning the last harvest sheaf), on this year’s theme, ‘Travelling Hopefully.’
This is the fourth time that the former history teacher, who comes originally from Aberdeenshire, has won, or shared, top prize in the competition since its inception in 2003. She is “over the moon” at this year’s success, she says.
Her winning poem deals with a wealthy expatriate, who is drawn back to the harvest-fields of his emotional inheritance. She was partly inspired, she says, by her railwayman father who worked for years in Tanganyika. The judges - Professor Alan Riach and myself - admired the accomplished conception and handling of the poem and its use of authentic rural Scots.
The runner-up prize in this annual competition, administered jointly by The Herald and the Scottish Literature Department of Glasgow University, is Lesley Benzie, whose powerful poem, Syrians Cairryin a Makeshift Bodybag, interweaves the tragedy of Middle East refugees with the covid nightmare.
Five highly commended prizes of £100 each go to Trisha Heaney; John Burns, Mary Spence, Ann MacKinnon; and William Bonar. Their poems range from the moral lessons taught by migrating goldcrests and Greta Thunberg, to a mystical voyage into the unknown, a scramble up Ben Lomond, and the sad fate of unwanted books which end up as road surfacings.
These lively contributions to this year’s competition prove how robust the Scots language remains, and how finely it adapts to contemporary issues as well as to evergreen themes.
The winner’s and the runner-up’s poems can be read in the Poem of the Day column on the Obituaries Page today and tomorrow. Other commended poems will also feature in the coming weeks.
THE CLYACK SHAFE
Hame for his eeswal sax month leave
hine awa fae the bonnie hoose
reamin wi space, servans takkin tent,
sun-downers oan bougainvillea verandahs
– aathing he’d biggit up for himsel
waarlds awa fae far he’d stertit
– a vistin freen chanced tae say
Govalhill’s in sair need o a han wi his hairst.
Nae young, nae swack, but
Aye. I’ll be there the morn.
He’d nae idea his need wis sae fierce
his bleed dingin tae feel
the reeshle o skinklan corn
athort a lang-rigged park,
hard-nubbit siller-gowd
an stooks o hey lik roon breists
– aa the tyauve o a day’s lang darg
stiff shooders, oxters wringin weet
winnin tae the hinner-en, a hairst
weel-gaithert, the clyack-shafe,
seer again in his saa, his ain grun.
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