The competition, sponsored by Strathclyde and hosted in partnership with the Edinburgh International Book Festival, offers one of the largest poetry prizes in the UK, with £5,000 for the winner and further awards of £1,000, £500 and two prizes of £50. 

Now in its fifth year, the competition had the support of, and is held in honour of, Edwin Morgan, who was Scotland’s Makar or national poet and who died in 2010, aged 90.

Two award-winning Scottish poets, Don Paterson and Gillian Ferguson, will be the judges for the 2012 competition.  Last year’s competition attracted 1,200 entries from around the world and first prize was awarded to Jane McKie for her poem Leper Window, St Mary the Virgin.

Dr David Kinloch, a Reader in Strathclyde's Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences and co-founder of the competition, said: 'This is the fifth year the competition will run. I'm pleased by the enthusiasm it generates each time and how it helps to keep Edwin Morgan's name to the fore.

“This year we're proud to have two very distinguished judges, Don Paterson and Gillian Ferguson, to adjudicate, grateful, as ever, for the University's continued support and for the Edinburgh International Book Festival's faith in the competition. I'm particularly happy that this year, for the first time, the competition will also be open to entries in Scots, which Edwin Morgan did so much to promote during his lifetime.'

Don Paterson is the only poet to have won the TS Eliot Poetry Prize twice- in 1997 and 2003- and has also been awarded three Forward Poetry Prizes- for best first collection in 1993, for best single poem in 2008 and for best collection in 2009. He also received the Whitbread Poetry Award- now the Costa Poetry Award- in 2003 and was appointed an OBE in 2008.

Gillian Ferguson won a Creative Scotland Award and significant critical acclaim for her groundbreaking digital work, The Human Genome: Poems on the Book of Life, a four-part piece inspired by the human genetic code. Her previous book of poems, Baby - the first to chart the whole experience of becoming a mother – was a bestseller and a unique edition was commissioned High Street chain GAP. The award of her fourth Writer’s Bursary and a continued interest in science, has recently resulted in Flora, poems exploring the genetic connection between man and flowers. She has also been a columnist at The Scotsman, Scotland on Sunday and the Financial Times.

The competition will close at 9am on Monday 4 June. Details of the competition, including its rules, can be seen at http://edwinmorganpoetrycompetition.co.uk/index.php/home