Scott Elder

Biography

Scott Elder’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in several magazines, including The New Welsh Reader, Wild Court, Southword, The Rialto, The Moth, Orbis, Poetry Salzburg, Cyphers, Cake, and Crannog. He was runner-up in the Troubadour International Poetry Prize 2016, among the winners of the Guernsey International Poetry Prize 2018, won third prize in the Teignmouth Poetry Prize 2019 and the Southport Writers’ Circle Competition 2017, highly commended in the Bristol, the Poetry on the Lake, and Buzzwords Poetry Competitions in 2018, and shortlisted in the Fish Poetry Prize 2017, the Plough Prize 2016 and 2017, and the Erbacce Prize 2019. Publications: Breaking Away, Poetry Salzburg (2015), Part of the Dark’, Dempsey&Windle 2017 (UK).

Samples

Witness (first published in Cake) The direction of flight and the wing’s flutter confirm the origin of fire still raging in your ear. The kick and bite of a .340 Magnum— a brutal entrance. The world— a freeze and a cringe, a fox in full leap, suspended in time, the physics of resistance, acceleration and fall, fused, and you pinned to the edge beyond the clearing, still listening to the wind creeping through dawn. Let Me Sleep (first published in The Moth) These are the tiny hours looping through hollow, tunnel, through a bottomless pit, when mice scurry back to nests in the attic. My eyes are trussed and yours, wolf-glint and close, pearls of light in shadows. A taste of blood, of rust—my tongue is limp. I try to swallow. A Boeing’s drawl fades to a tick. The clock in the kitchen— a tireless soul. 'Les me seep…' Something is floundering back to a source, a ship listing miles offshore, a lady waving her scarf ‘hello’, ‘goodbye’ or something terribly more. Here and Again (First published in The High Window) Half-sliced a lily on the table petals burning white on white there’s no saying who’s under that skin salt spray spindrift a taste of rust a drop of blood just name it it’s there a knife-slit away not waiting for someone to whisper 'come alive' 'come alive' instinctively twisting back to spawn to begin again the incantation the ragged waltz half-here half-gone you touch your lips to a lily’s wound 'this is sorrow' it murmurs the pain is gone

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