Hosted by the Arran Theatre and Arts Trust as part of the annual McLellan Arts Festival, this prestigious competition offers £1,000 first place prizes for poems in both English and Scots. Esteemed poet Jim Carruth will judge this year’s submissions.
The deadline for entries is June 15th 2025.
Winners will be invited to read at the award ceremony on the Isle of Arran on August 29th 2025.
For full details and entry forms visit the Arran Theatre and Arts Trust website
The McLellan Poetry Prize is awarded by the Arran Theatre and Arts Trust Ltd as part of the annual McLellan Arts Festival. Now in its seventeenth year, past judges have included Kathleen Jamie, Robert Crawford, Jackie Kay, Peter and Ann Sansom, Michael Laskey, Simon Armitage, David Constantine Maura Dooley and Sinéad Morrissey, Sean O’Brien, Luke Wright, Hollie McNish, Joelle Taylor, Jim Mckintosh and William Letford.
Judge for 2025: Jim Carruth
Jim Carruth is a poet, editor and awards and events programmer. He is the co-founder and chair of St Mungo’s Mirrorball and has been an artistic advisor for StAnza. He is the current Poet Laureate of Glasgow and is the RLF Fellow at Glasgow University. His poetry has won a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship; the James McCash poetry competition, the McLellan Poetry Prize and the Callum Macdonald prize.
He has brought out four full collections and nine chapbooks. Killochries was shortlisted for the Saltire Scottish Poetry Book of the Year, the Seamus Heaney Centre For Poetry Prize and the Fenton Aldeburgh Prize. His latest collection Far Field came out in 2023.
Whether you’re a seasoned writer or submitting your first poem, everyone is warmly welcome!