William Hershaw took home the McCash Prize, which is open to the public and awarded annually to the best written in Scots; while Emilia Weber won the Alistair Buchan Prize, which is open to submissions for any matriculated student studying subjects in English or History.

The winners and two runners up from each category were awarded a cash prize on the night. More information on the prizes is available on the School of Critical Studies’ webpages.

Here is the full list of prizewinners:

 

McCash Prize 2011 (open to anyone to enter)

1st Prize William Hershaw £750

2nd Prize E.M. Buchanan £350

3rd Prize Andrew McCallum £200

 

Alastair Buchan Prize 2011 (open to matriculated students studying subjects in English or History)

1st Prize: Emilia Weber £250

2nd Prize: Mark Ryan Smith £150

3rd Prize: Archie Miller £100

Commended: Calum MacLeod

 

Emelia’s submitted poems:

 

Late December, Ramsgate

BBC news empties murders
into the car. Police diagrams
and a fly measure                         
the black square of

window pane.

In Broadstairs we search
for The 39 Steps

find only Bleak House
French phone networks
and winds fondling the
rising argument of birds

reading your eyelids I see

your thoughts of waxwings.
Maybe of the colibri
and the dead child too?
Are we anchored beneath

that bubbling troublous wave.

            -

Step from that beach.                                             
Step from our skin.
Let us become Margate pilgrims

where fog rust streetlight
swaddles us. Makes

sweetest smoke yellow                     

our zoo of dilapidation. Stand watch
Dreamland’s roller coasters unspool themselves
sick old veins weaving threads
the ghosts of drops and turns
now silent, ashen
still beautiful.


I’ll stare at Emin’s neon rivulets
whilst smiles and potlatch
bounce between us.

 

Poem

In between day and night
horizontal in our bed hills
we ate and spoke

about Mubarak
and waves -

Not kelp green, bean, fringes
like ours had seemed.

I dropped my t’s and h’s
adopted a diphthong to make
you laugh
(silently apologised to Fanon).

A comfort so big it
dazed me.

First published: 8 November 2011

<< Nov