This year’s Edwin Morgan poetry competition was launched last week. With a first prize of £5,000 and others of £1,000, £500 and £50 (x 2), it’s one of the richest poetry prizes in Britain, but the kudos of being thus associated with Morgan’s name would itself be a high reward in my book. And, of course, it’s an international competition. Last year, it attracted more than 1,000 entries and was won by AB Jackson (whose new pamphlet from Donut is a cracker, by the way, as Mark Burnhope has already pointed out).

This year’s judges are Vicki Feaver and Kona MacPhee. It’s interesting to note that this is the first time in the competition’s four-year history that all the judges have been women. I don’t know whether any major poetry competition has ever had a 100% female judging panel before — I can’t think of any off hand — but I strongly suspect there has been no shortage of multi-judge panels that consisted entirely of men. Here’s to the Morgan’s blow for equality, though it should be really should be long past the point where any such blow is worth remarking on.