Scott is a poet and critic from Manchester who came to my Sheffield reading and sat in the front row. Not only is he a fine fellow, but his Hold (Shearsman Books, 2006) gives us 113 pages of finely crafted, meditative poems that circle around the ideas of Text, Textuality and Intertextuality, with the homing instinct of a wolf wasp returning to its nest even on the cloudiest day at the beach. Here’s a good example:

Ars Moriendi

It is too late to research;
I just don’t have time.

You will have to do that for me,
Afterwards. To check and see

Where I lie up with these tracts.
Historicize me. It seems that to

Confront my worst fear–of facing
A self-infliced death–is what might

Lead to real living with others.
I am not dying yet we are all lying

Still.

A signature is like a handshake at the door: “…Thanks again for/ the Gage in Sheffield–/I hope you enjoy my passion!/’form of glistening/materials’ best Scott.

Still looking: the off-white pages and the rungs of lines, the small ladders of words propped against them. Still looking, and many many thanks returned!