Penny Boxall has won the £20,000 biennial Edwin Morgan poetry award for Scottish poets aged 30 or under, it was announced at the Edinburgh book festival on Thursday.

Boxall, who was born in 1987 and grew up in Aberdeenshire and Yorkshire, won it with her first collection, Ship of the Line, published by Eyewear. In 2014 she was commended in the Forward prize.

The award judges were the national poet for Scotland, Jackie Kay, and former Edinburgh makar [laureate] Stewart Conn. Kay said: “Penny Boxall runs a tight ship. Her poems are beautifully crafted. Reading her is to go on an interesting journey of exploration - stopping at fascinating places along the way. She has a curator’s mind and is always putting one thing beside another in an unexpected way.”

Runner-up was Miriam Nash for her collection All the Prayers in the House, which will be published by Bloodaxe in 2017. She was born in Inverness and spent her early years on the west coast island of Erraid. She receives £2,500. Stewart Conn said that “Miriam Nash’s poems provide pleasure through the variety and veracity of their subject matter, her insight and freshness of approach, and the warmth she breathes into them”.

The other shortlisted poets, who each receive £1,000, were: Claire Askew, Sophie Collins, Harry Giles and Stewart Sanderson.

PHOTOGRAPH: GREG FREEMAN / WRITE OUT LOUD