Scott Dalgarno
Scott Dalgarno finds abundant inspiration from the mystic, Julian of Norwich, the poet, Elizabeth Bishop, the artistry of Jon Batiste, and several coastal redwoods in the Bolling Grove.
While he writes a lot of prose, he finds that writing poetry can be an out-of-body experience, occasionally transporting him to a zone where time does not exist and is not age-bound.
He lives among firs and dogwoods in Lake Oswego, Oregon, where he works for issues of justice. Third-Class Relics was a finalist for the 2024 Sally Albiso Prize. It is his first collection of poems.
Scott Dalgarno’s website can be found at www.ScottDalgarno.org.
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Excerpt from Third-Class Relics
Largo
There’s your alto on your voicemail. You’re dead and sounding quite fine. Well, everything overlaps. Everything bleeds into everything else—physics and mathematics, chemistry and biology, Bonnie and Clyde. What’s life, anyway, but a short stay in a quirky motel? Still, they say it takes, on average, eight times longer to accomplish anything than you expect. I learned today that ullage is slang for the measure of lack in a wine glass, and I think of you and me and all we discovered together, and I let myself entertain the thought, just for a moment, that we will never see each other again. Oh, I know, even if we got together now it would be different, you being, you know, dead. That’s the problem with grief. Just when I’m sure it’s passed, like you, (go on, say it) forever, here it comes again, like Tony Perkins in drag, that old Hitchcock staccato stabbing holes in the curtain of my resignation, every bit as persistent as this pulsing desire that prompts me to keep punching your empty number.
