Poet of the Month

January: Rebecca Lowe (Wales).
February: Jim Gronvold (USA). 
March: Carolyn Mary Kleefeld (USA).
April: Tozan Alkan (Turkey).
May: Byron Beynon (Wales).
June: Michelle Chung (USA). 
July: Jim Gwyn (USA).
August: Jonathan Taylor (England).
September: Beata Poźniak (USA).
October: Maria Taylor (England).
November: Stanley H. Barkan (USA).
December: John Dotson (USA).

January: Maria Mastrioti (Greece).

February: Gayl Teller (USA).
March: Mike Jenkins (Wales).
April: Cassian Maria Spiridon (Romania).
May: Simon Fletcher (England)
June: Sultan Catto (USA)
July: Vojislav Deric (Australia)
August: K. S. Moore (Ireland)
September: Kristine Doll (USA)
October: Tammy Nuzzo-Morgan (USA)
November: Christopher Norris (Wales)
December: Maria Mazziotti Gillan (USA)

2023: Poets featured as Poet of the Month 

January: Samuel Ezra (Wales)
February: Tôpher Mills (Wales)
March: Rob Cullen (Wales)
April: Mandira Ghosh (India)
May: John Greening (England)
June: Rosy Wood-Bevan (Wales)
July: David Hughes (Wales)

2025: Poets featured as Poet of the Month 
January: Annest Gwilym (Wales)
February: Sam Smith (Wales)
March: Dave Lewis (Wales)

 

 APRIL POET OF THE MONTH:
SCOTT ELDER (FRANCE)

Scott Elder (c) 2025 Scott Elder

Scott Elder studied at the American University in Paris, lived as a street musician in Paris and London, then worked as a mime artist in France and Portugal before taking monastic vows and spending twelve years in a Buddhist hermitage in France.  He now lives in Auvergne with his three teenage children.

Since 2014 his work has been published on both sides of the Atlantic, placed or commended in numerous competitions in the UK and Ireland, and shortlisted in the Bridport, Fish, Plough, Aesthetica and Troubadour Prizes. His debut pamphlet, ‘Breaking Away’, was published by Poetry Salzburg in 2015, a first collection, ‘Part of the Dark’, by Dempsey&Windle in 2017 and his second, ‘Maria’ was published by Erbacce Press in 2023. A third is due in 2026 by Salmon Poetry in Ireland.


Dieppe

A quarter past two and you wondered if
your body were a breeze or a breath of moonlight,
if your children drew on the tide in the harbour
or the dew-covered garden in their dream work.
They lay like feathers in a single bed. And you, at once
the lady in the window and the woman moving
down the cobblestone lane to a pier beyond
the bulwarks and pilings, blending, step upon step,
your own colour and form into that nightscape.

Coffee House Poetry (2016)

(c) 2025 Scott Elder

Let Me Sleep

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.

The Moth (1917)

(c) 2025 Scott Elder

Return from St. André

I don’t remember her face, your name,
the roadsides and meadows. I cannot

hear the howling at night, the lonely beast,
but its blood pulse is deep and running slow.

Shall I tell you of a swallow?
A trace of coal burns in her eye.

She sleeps in flight and dreams in pieces
a forgotten tale of that ancient beast,

a hunter hunted, a shadow’s drift,
once the spur of my fear and envy.

Now it’s sleeping in a breath of leaves,
in a poplar’s sway, and I’ll walk gently

down to the river, cup my palm,
and draw in water for two.

‘Part of the Dark’ (2017)

(c)2025  Scott Elder

Queen of Spades

How gently she shuffles the deck
cards respond in purrs
three spades fall on an oaken table
try not to blink or look aside

would you like a drink     she’ll whisper
I’m fine     you must say
the cargo’s moored in the harbor
its silhouette pulsing dawn

she’s French and new at this
but obviously not at cards
feign belief to give her confidence
and she’ll go on for an hour or so

about transforming shite into gold
of course, you’d prefer a heart or club
but the spades will keep falling
when the harbor emerges the ship will be gone

don’t show surprise
she’ll help you to the door
and you’ll say goodbye     goodbye
as you’ve said countless times before

The High Window 2020

(c) 2025 Scott Elder

Chessmen Have Their Ways
         after Debussy’s Prelude No.4
         'Les sons et parfums tournent dans l’air du soir’

On the board a ragged knight
a worn-out steed     a mare

he’s listening to the ‘cree-cree’
of amorous cicadas

a day ill-fit for war
he longs for sleep

and glimpses his daughter
piecing through notes

(silences cut them short)

he whispers something gentle
in his mare’s ear

(she’s gentleness itself)

her look runs fathoms
they step off the board

a field of melons awaits
and just beyond the cliff

the sea

The High Window (2020)

(c) 2025 Scott Elder


At Once the River       

                                   i  lethe

When her ragged breath became a sigh    we entered     incandescent
two bodies cut flat     dark water    warm     embracing each pore
deepness    a thrill      loosening our grip    I touched her hand
it stained my own    twilight colours     she said     she spoke in shreds
eternity filled each lisp and slur     I listened    host and guest
till the river became our savior     and slumber     my Lord 

                                    ii  acheron
her hand was ancient as water itself     ankles knees belly waist
the river swelled to meet her lips     what shadow is this
that spills me here     bitterness dripped from the tips of her hair
she smiled once and then forever     as if meeting a forgotten lover
what shadow is this that links me so     a warmth     familiar
as a scent remembered     only upon its re-encounter    a breath   
fleeting     a river     sliding     the whole of it beyond her reach
as might an echo     in mist

                                    iii  phlegethon
how long did she sleep     certainly not an eternity   
after all     she’s here     is she not     as miracles go
a river might turn into a sea of milk    this one’s blood
and fire howling     she strips to her feet     follows her steps
to the river’s edge    and leaps    eyes raging
Rosie’s no different from fire or water     this she knows     

                                    iv  cocytus
everything     the room     bed     her hands and thoughts
dissolved in sound     a roar     a storm     in a bell jar’s grip
and poof      she’s ankle-deep in tears     the river wails
to no avail    she’s deaf     and only feels a body’s slip
deeper and deeper     the water fills her emptiness
and leaves her tender as a new-born nymph

                                    v  styx
dusk or dawn     whichever     sun’s an abstraction
the ferryman too     there is a bank     and on it she kneels                                                          
this is no river     her thoughts stir like bubbles rising
the morass is thick of them     each shoulders a murmur
kiss your index     to feel its presence     no finger     no lips
breathless comes the ferryman     breathless she steps in

Aesthetica Creative Writing Anthology (2022)

(c) 2025 Scott Elder


In the Maelström

First the fissure, then the fall
one little cog has given up

a bit of iron in a pool of oil
the concrete floor is weeping

underneath: a breath of earth
you attune your ear to whispers

a spiral tugging at your sleeve,
a pulsar’s secret murmur

lying limp on every tongue
of every stranger in the street

it’s just a tale, a star’s demise
I’ll have cognac with café

a cube of sugar for the bitter,
another for the bite

The London Magazine (2023)

(c) 2025 Scott Elder