Polygon have published Moder Dy the first full collection from the 2018 Edwin Morgan Poetry Prize winner, Roseanne Watt.

Roseanne Watt is a poet, filmmaker and musician from Shetland; her poems are shaped by the landscape and language of her birthplace. She is currently poetry editor for The Island Review. She was the winner of the 2015 Outspoken Poetry Prize (Poetry in Film) and runner-up in the 2018 Aesthetica Creative Writing Award. She lives and works in Edinburgh.

Roseanne was published in Polygon’s 2011 anthology, edited by Kevin MacNeil, These Islands, We Sing. Since then Watt’s work has appeared in various publications, including: The Harlequin, Northwords Now, Gutter and the Irish Pages.

Janice Galloway, one of the judges of this year’s Edwin Morgan Prize, said, ‘In rigorously controlled, concise, and vivid languages (English and cleverly rendered Shetlandic) she offers glimpses of beasts – all kinds – within their given landscapes . . . alongside which we find the most complex and mysterious of human experiences. This is a celebration of language, place, and the mystery of being alive, alive, alive.’

And Edwin Morgan Poetry Prize judge John Glenday said, ‘In this shimmering, unforgettable collection, the Shetlandic dialect wins through on every level: there are entire poems in dialect – strange, beautiful unforgettable songs; there are English poems with single Shetlandic words glinting through. Even in the poems written entirely in English the lilt and the cadence of the Shetlandic moves behind everything, like the sea. There’s a remarkably mature intelligence at work in these profound, assured and wilfully spare poems.’

Polygon’s Poetry Editor Edward Crossan said, ‘I am delighted to include Roseanne in our Polygon New Poets series, her work is both deeply intelligent and outward looking.’

Moder Dy as published in June 2019.