COLIN BRAMWELL

'Colin Bramwell manages to combine meticulous attention to craft with a love of language and a delightfully irreverent humour. In these poems we recognise the local as universal. Though its intentions remain serious throughout because a genuine poetic intelligence is at work, the collection is also formally playful. Bramwell masters everything from the prose poem to the villanelle to daring, accumulative poems; there are snatches of dramatic verse and witty tilts at the Scottish character. There are even remarkable open translations into Scots from Latin American and Chinese poets. All these pieces fit together into a wry cohesive whole which, even when complete, remains a puzzle.'

Kathleen Jamie and John Glenday, Judges for the 2020 Edwin Morgan Poetry award