Robertson's first volume of poetry,
A Painted Field, won the 1997
Forward Prize for Best First Collection and the Scottish First Book of the Year Award.
Slow Air followed in 2002, and his third book,
Swithering, was published in 2006, winning the Forward Prize for Best Collection. In 2004, Robertson received the
E. M. Forster Award from the
American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2009 he was elected a Fellow of the
Royal Society of Literature. He completed the set of Forward Prizes in 2009 when "At Roane Head" won the award for Best Single Poem. This poem is included in his fourth collection,
The Wrecking Light (2010), a volume shortlisted for the 2010
Forward Prize, the Costa Poetry Award and the
T. S. Eliot Prize. In 2013 he was honourably awarded the international, German
Petrarca-Preis, sharing it with
Adonis. In 2013, his book
Hill of Doors was shortlisted for the
Costa Book Award for Poetry. His narrative poem,
The Long Take, won the
Goldsmiths Prize for innovative fiction. In 2019 it won him the 10th
Walter Scott Prize, making him the first Scot and first poet to win the award. It was shortlisted for the 2018
Man Booker Prize. In 2019 he was a contributor to
A New Divan: A Lyrical Dialogue Between East and West (Gingko Library). == Poetry collections ==