Wigtown Poetry Prizes 2026: 'Empathy and genuine experience' keys to future of poetry in age of AI

Nicholas Walker | Colin Tennant

As the poet Alastair Reid wrote in the foreword to his 1978 collection Weathering, “it is from poetry more than anything that one learns to say well”. But what of poetry competitions? Do they teach to say well? They certainly serve to encourage and focus poets, offering motivation and a deadline, publication for winners, access to the scrutiny of judges. They offer the opportunity for poets to say something important to them, and for others to hear it.

Now 21 years old, the Wigtown Poetry Prizes are recognised as Scotland’s international poetry awards. They draw hundreds of entries from around the globe. Reid the internationalist would be pleased to see their representation and reach.

This year’s winners are from Galloway, Fife, Surrey, Australia and Canada with others shortlisted from Scotland, Denmark, New Zealand and elsewhere. Commended Gaelic and Scots poets reflect the Scottish diaspora. Between them they touch grief, love, Celtic folklore, libraries, industrial history, emigration and the illusion of wealth.

Wigtown’s winning poems reflect the breadth of human experience past and present, our struggles, discernments and joys, as well as hopes for the future. All the invigorating aspects of poetry that hooked Larry Lamb, the TV actor whose essay discusses his urge to become a poet aged nearly 80.

This year saw impressive entries in Scots and Gaelic. Niall O’Gallagher, who judged the Gaelic award, commented on the sheer range of poetic forms on display, including what he speculates is the first Cornish sonnet in Gaelic. This adaptability and vigour would come as no surprise to Ceitidh Campbell, another essay writer, who is impressed on a daily basis by the energy she witnesses in Gaelic secondary education. Much the same is true with Scots, which Michael Mullen’s essay described as “booming on the page and the stage”.

A persistent question about poetry competitions is whether they have a legacy. I contacted last year’s winner of the Wigtown International Prize, Molly Thapviwat about her experience. She is a Thai-American based in Bangkok, who attracted media interest thanks to her other talent as a female Elvis tribute artist.

Reflecting on her win, she says: “it shone a bright light on the life I was building as a poet, helping me see it more clearly and believe more fully in where my writing could take me. In the year since, I’ve had poems appear in Guernica, Arc Poetry Magazine and Frontier Poetry, and I won a Pushcart Prize for poetry. The boost to my writing confidence also encouraged me to venture beyond poetry, and my first short story has been accepted for publication. As Elvis said, ‘Every dream that I ever dreamed has come true a hundred times’!”

A limitation of many competitions is that a poet is judged on a single piece rather than a body of work. We compensate with the Alastair Reid Pamphlet Prize for a collection of up to 12 poems. Ruth Padel said judging them filled her with awe – “So many original thoughts, insights and perceptions, beautiful and arresting phrases, humour, tragedy, pity and fear …”.

The Wigtown Prizes also look to the future by nurturing emerging talent. Our Fresh Voice Award is for unpublished poets in Dumfries and Galloway. This year they were judged by Marjorie Lotfi, whose essay on poetry as resistance reflected her family experience of flight from the Iranian Revolution. Her comments on the entries suggest that there is a great deal to look forward to from the emerging generation of Scottish poets. She said: “There is much to commend, but specifically I kept returning to their strong images, and the unexpected way that many of the poems unfold despite the reader thinking she knows where they’ll lead.”

So where do the prizes go next? We’ll continue seeking poets and poems that draw attention to what’s bad, and what’s joyful, entertaining and opinionated. Hugh McMillan identified this as the purpose of poetry in the first piece in this series.

However, we live in a moment of growing concern about the ubiquity, power and invasive nature of AI. It’s a time where human creativity, authentic voice and the craft of writing are becoming ever more precious. Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical was a reminder that AI merely imitates some functions of human intelligence. It does not feel or experience the world as humans do. In addition to promoting poetry in English, Scots and Gaelic our future task may also be to protect and amplify the true creativity that can spring only from human empathy, spiritual depth and genuine experience.

Winners of the Wigtown Poetry Prizes 2026

International Prize: Winner: Damen O’Brien a multi-award winning Australian poet, with The Edge / Runner-up: Aileen Lees, a Thai-British writer and artist based in Perthshire, founder of Decolonising the Outdoors, with Question for the two apple trees on the M90

Scots Prize: Winner: William Hershaw, Fife, with The Seaman and Saint Brendan / Runner-up: Donald Adamson, from Dumfries but living in Finland, with Leadhills Miners’ Library

Gaelic Prize: Winner: Sgàire Uallas (Zachary Wallace) a lawyer and creative writer interested in Celtic folklore in Ontario, Canada, with Mac-ghnìomhara / Runner-up: Marcas Mac an Tuairneir: Edinburgh-based poet, translator, editor and singer-songwriter, with Dolaran

Dumfries & Galloway Fresh Voice Award: Fiona Lindsay, a Newton Stewart teacher, with her collection Becoming

Alastair Reid Pamphlet Prize: Maureen Jivani, Surrey, whose collection Alma in the Blue, arose through grief at the sudden death of her daughter

Read the winning poems at www.wigtownpoetryprize.com

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