The winners of the 2026 Wigtown Poetry Prizes – Scotland’s international poetry awards – were unveiled last night.
The announcements were made at a special event at Bladnoch Distillery, as part of the 10-day Wigtown Book Festival in Galloway.
Scottish entries came from as near as Dumfries & Galloway and as far as Edinburgh, Fife, Perthshire, Skye and Orkney.
Others came from far beyond – Northern Ireland, England, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.
This year’s £1,500 International Poetry Prize went to Damen O’Brien, a multi-award winning poet from Brisbane, Australia, for The Edge which describes the experience of drug withdrawal.
The runner-up was Perth-based Thai British writer and artist Aileen Angsutorn Lees, founder of Decolonising the Outdoors, with her reflective Question for the Two Apple Trees on the M90.
The Wigtown Poetry Prizes celebrate work in English, Scots and Gaelic. They include prizes for the best collection and for the best emerging poet from Dumfries & Galloway.
Nick Walker, Wigtown Festival Company trustee, said: “Good poetry can be challenging, entertaining, insightful, funny, sad, difficult, demanding or enlightening – this year’s entries addressed every imaginable subject and evoked every possible emotion.
“The competition is now 21 years old and grows stronger each year. It’s profoundly Scottish yet proudly international – crossing borders and boundaries of every kind.
“It takes pride in our languages, renews our culture, and nurtures established and emerging poets from Galloway, Scotland and every other corner of the planet.”
This year’s festival, and poetry prizes, marked the centenary of one of Scotland’s greatest 20th century literary figures, Alastair Reid, born in Galloway but constantly on the move as a travel writer, essayist, football reporter, children’s writer, translator and poet.
Nick said: “As a committed internationalist I believe Alastair Reid, for so many years a festival patron, would be pleased to see the representation and reach the prizes have achieved.”
The Alastair Reid Pamphlet Prize, given each year for the best collection, went to Maureen Jivani, a nurse from Surrey.
Her set of 12 poems, entitled Alma in the Blue, set by Gerry Cambridge and published as a pamphlet by Wigtown Festival Company, grew out of grief following the sudden death of her teenage daughter.
Maureen said: “It wasn’t cathartic to write these poems. It was hard. Everything came back to me. But as a writer it’s something you have to do. It’s wonderful to be awarded this prize.”
Judging both the international and pamphlet prizes, award-winning poet Ruth Padel said: “Judging filled me with excitement and awe. There were so many original thoughts, insights and perceptions, beautiful and arresting phrases; so much humour, tragedy, pity and fear, so much beautifully achieved formal variation. Picking a shortlist felt like having teeth pulled.”
The winner of the Gaelic Prize is another international poet, Sgàire Uallas (Zachary Wallace), a lawyer in Ontario, Canada, and avid creative writer with an interest in Celtic mythology and folklore.
Commenting on the winning poem, Mac-ghnìomhara, judge Niall O’Gallagher praised the poem’s “taut, winding rhymes reminiscent of older Gaelic lyrics, its song-like alternation between short- and long-lined stanzas and its sense of powerful emotion being kept just in check. This is a poem that continues to surprise, that demands to be read again and again.”
Runner-up is Marcas Mac an Tuairneir with his poem Dolaran. A previous winner of both the Gaelic Prize and the International Prize, Marcas is a poet, translator, editor and singer-songwriter based in Edinburgh.
Niall added that overall he was struck by “the range of poetic forms on display, from sonnets through free verse to the popular metres of the bardic tradition”.
The Gaelic Prize is supported by The Gaelic Books Council whose Director, Alison Lang, said: “A-rithist am-bliadhna tha sinn air ar brosnachadh gu mòr le tàlant nam bàrd, agus toilichte gu bheil cothrom aig sgrìobhadairean Gàidhlig a bhith an sàs ann am farpais Baile na h-Ùige còmhla ri bàird chliùiteach bho air feadh an t-saoghail. Tha sinn a’ toirt taing do Niall O’Gallagher airson breithneachadh air na dàin, agus a’ cur meal-an-naidheachd air an neach-buannachaidh, Sgàire Uallas, agus air na bàird eile air a’ gheàrr-liosta.”
The Gaelic Prize is supported by The Gaelic Books Council whose Director, Alison Lang, said: “Once again we are greatly encouraged by the talent displayed by this year’s entrants, and delighted that Gaelic writers have the opportunity to be involved in the Wigtown Poetry Prizes alongside poets of worldwide renown. We thank Niall O’Gallagher for judging the poems, and we congratulate the winner, Zachary Wallace, and all the shortlisted poets.”
Scots Prize judge, Rab Wilson had a “fair bit o effort an heid-scartin” to arrive at a shortlist from a high quality field.
He chose as winner The Seaman and Saint Brendan by William Hershaw from Fife. The runner-up is Donald Adamson from Finland, but originally from Dumfries, with Leadhills Miners’ Library.
The Fresh Voice Award is for poets in Dumfries & Galloway earlier in their career.
This year it was judged by Marjorie Lotfi who said: “There is so much to commend, but specifically I kept returning to the range of strong images, and the unexpected way that many of the poems unfold despite the reader thinking she knows where they’ll lead.”
Newton Stewart teacher, Fiona Lindsay (pictured) won the award with her collection Becoming. Her prize is a year’s writing mentorship funded by Wigtown Festival Company and a writing retreat courtesy of Moniack Mhor Creative Writing Centre.
- The winning poems and the full shortlist can be seen at www.wigtownpoetryprize.com.
-Ends-
Notes to editors
- This year’s Wigtown Poetry Prizes were run by Wigtown Festival Company in association with The Scotsman.
The 2026 awards
- Wigtown International Prize: Winner: £1,500. Runner-up: £200
- Wigtown Scots Prize: Winner: £500: Runner-up: £200.
- Wigtown Scottish Gaelic Prize: Winner: £500: Runner-up: £200. Supported by The Gaelic Books Council
- Dumfries & Galloway Fresh Voice Award: Professional support including mentoring by Wigtown Festival Company and a retreat at Moniack Mhor Creative Writing Centre.
- Alastair Reid Pamphlet Prize: Winner: Publication of a pamphlet set by Gerry Cambridge.
About the Wigtown Poetry Prizes: Founded in 2005 and refreshed and rebranded in 2019, Wigtown Poetry Prizes welcome entries from poets writing in English wherever they may live. Separate categories celebrate the best of Scottish Gaelic and Scots language poetry, a special category acknowledges a rising talent in Dumfries & Galloway, and a pamphlet prize is named in memory of Alastair Reid – local poet and one of Scotland’s foremost literary figures.
- Website: www.wigtownpoetryprize.com Email: mail@wigtownbookfestival.com
The 2026 awards take place in partnership with The Scotsman, and in association with:
- The Gaelic Books Council https://www.gaelicbooks.org
- Moniack Mhor Creative Writing Centre https://www.moniackmhor.org.uk
- Scottish Poetry Library https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk
About The Gaelic Books Council: Comhairle nan Leabhraichean (The Gaelic Books Council) is the lead organisation with responsibility for supporting Scottish Gaelic authors and publishers, and for raising the profile and reach of Scottish Gaelic books in Scotland and internationally. Established in 1968, Comhairle nan Leabhraichean is a registered charity and receives support from Creative Scotland and from Bòrd na Gàidhlig.
For media information and interview requests contact Matthew Shelley on 07786 704299 or Matthew@ScottishFestivalsPR.Org
