SPECIAL MENTION GRIERSON PRIZE 2026
Sally Averbuch is an Archaeology and Social Anthropology student from East Lothian. She was one of Scotland’s Young Makars in 2023, performing her work at the StAnza poetry festival in St Andrews and at Wigtown Book Festival. She was the third place winner of an international Young Poets Network challenge with her poem ‘Bog-Bodied’ in 2025. She enjoys reading and writing poetry and has a love/hate relationship with rhyme schemes. She finds much of her inspiration from the natural world and human intervention within it.
Instagram: @sallyaverbuch
‘This poem is an amalgamation of things I have felt and observed in this city that continues to be such a great source of inspiration to me. What an honour that it has been chosen as a runner-up for the Grierson Verse Prize!”
City Fragments
a cat carried in a cage past the plastic surgeon’s shop.
a spray-painted seagull and a whale bone chopping block.
a ruined stone abbey with the palace built beside.
a heather-covered hill with a dead volcano inside.
a gun – at one – shoots the hour where it stands.
a clock dropped from the wall – a tremoring of hands.
a bridge between the old and new under scaffolding still.
a single glazed windowpane with tulips on the sill.
a flashing green man and a turning of wheels.
a broken beating heart that hurts as it heals.
a refraction of light through a crystal ball.
an unfinished image – a world too small
