I thought that it would be wonderful to take a day for poetry, and Scott Hastie was kind enough to drop by… although I love poetry, it has been a long time since I have put down any lines of my own… there was a time when the only writing it did came in the form of a poem… it was easier with my dyslexia to spin my tales in this shortened format… it was something that I could share with my mother and grandfather… these days I focus more on novels and short stories (oh do I hate the edits) but poetry will always hold a special place in my heart… and without further ado, lets learn a little about Scott Hastie…

Author Bio:

Scott Hastie

Scott Hastie is a successful British born poet and writer, who has been has been commercially published in the UK for over twenty years now. He currently has ten titles in print, including a novel and four collections of poetry. In recent years, the spiritual tone in his unique poetic voice is starting to draw increasing attention from a worldwide audience, especially in the U.S. India & the Middle East.

Published in both print & e editions in 2014, Angel Voices was then his most substantial publication to date, featuring over 40 new poems never before seen, either in print or on the net. This title building much more on the mature poetic voice that first began to emerge in Scott’s previous title Meditations and featuring ALL readers favourites, as showcased on his popular website. For much more info and some spectacular reviews　for　Angel Voices　 (as　well as direct non-trade order options and deals…) go to www.scotthastie.com

What’s more, with interest continuing to build fast, plans are now already afoot for the release of a sparkling new collection of Scott’s poetry: Threads – currently in production and scheduled for release in this Spring! This already considered to be his landmark achievement to date, looking as it does to further develop the spiritual themes in his work and with key feature pieces already widely translated and published to worldwide acclaim.

Fortunately, it is still very easy to dip into Scott’s poetry at his highly visual and internationally popular new web site, which freely displays samples of both his already published and latest unpublished work. As a writer, Scott is very open and likes to encourage maximum participation and feedback from his readers.

His web site offers the chance to post comments, both on individual pieces or more generally, if you wish… And also encourages dialogue about writing. Scott offers mentoring services to other creative writers and students around the world. He is also passionate about visiting and learning from other cultures and his web site also features many fascinating photos from his extensive travels around the world.

Other links:

Official Twitter account: @scotthastiepoet　

Facebook fan page:　 www.facebook.com/scotthastiespiritpoet

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Hastie

Good Reads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1698160.Scott_Hastie

PoemHunter: http://www.poemhunter.com/scott-hastie/

All Poetry: http://allpoetry.com/Scott_Hastie

For full listings of all Scott’s publications, go to either:

To Purchase

Or

Amazon

 Now my peeps, I asked Scott to tell us a little more about himself… and this is what he decided to share with us… Plus a few of his poems, found below… he left it up to me to decide which of his works to include in this post… but I have always believed that a poem can mean many different things to varying people… each reader will put a different picture to the words… some will dislike a poem loved by dozens, and dozens my love a poem detested by millions… therefore I decided to include each of the poems provided by Scott, and I will let you guys decide… but this means that this post will be longer than most… about as long as the posts that include my book excerpts… anywho… I hope everyone finds one or two poems that you enjoy so much you read it over and over… 😛

Scott says:

“I feel blessed to be living and writing full-time at home in the glorious Hertfordshire countryside, only a thirty minute commuter ride from London. My poetry looks to positively explore human potential, with an emphasis on love, spiritual growth and self awareness. It is very important to me that my work remains as open, accessible and as simply expressed as possible. My influences vary from the great traditional English visionary romantics like Keats, Coleridge & Blake, then on to Gibran, Rilke & Eliot and then through to the distillation of thought and leanness of expression offered by the Japanese haiku tradition and later technical breakthroughs achieved in the 1970’s by leading Scottish concrete poets Ian Hamilton Finlay and Edwin Morgan.

I am also fortunate to have a smallish study all to myself, up in the loft at the top of my house, which looks out over open fields and a tree-lined skyline. Here I have quiet, cocooned space overlooking the English countryside (almost in the clouds…) and absolutely everything I need. Far, far away from anything else – phones, computers, tablets and door bells, especially…

For me, as a full time writer, a fairly rigorous, almost monastic daily routine is very important and underpins all my efforts. Not just in creating an exterior environment that is conducive to a concentrated and undisturbed focus on my craft – but one that also allows important preparatory time of an almost religious nature – given the spiritual themes that run through my work.

On a normal day, this would involve around two hours of advance preparation: morning exercise (normally running in the countryside and/or rowing) followed by breathing exercises, body stretches and meditation, sometimes some music also – before even beginning to think about any writing…

Having also eaten simply, I then would normally write in silence for between two to four hours – losing any sense of time, till my body tells me it is time to refuel. Immediately after lunch, I would then have a shorter 1-2 hour session (often the most exciting time of the day when earlier writing can begin to coalesce) Evenings are then usually important down-time from what is a quite an intense and tiring process. However I would still normally have a couple of short sessions early, right after my evening meal and also last thing before bed – which are more about reviewing existing work and quick, little polishing sessions – looking afresh and anew at whatever has emerged that day.

For me, it’s very important that every day (whether a writing day or not) begins and ends with me quietly reading through my last half a dozen pieces – in order hopefully to stay ‘in the flow’ and ‘in the voice’, clinging on tightly to that ‘silken thread’ that, once it slips from your grasp, can often be so hard to regain! Unless I’m away travelling or have specific social commitments, then EVERY day is a writing day.

I also have three identical and rather wonderful little digital voice recorders that literally go everywhere with me (one stays by the bed) so that, whatever I’m up to… I have some chance of capturing all those amazing little thoughts and insights that come to you, just out the blue – and as if by magic! Usually when you are in the throws of just doing something else, entirely – or just surfacing from sleep, for example. Previously so, so much would previously just get lost in the ether forever, before I started to do this and built it into my daily resources and routine.

All my life (and for reasons I can’t quite be sure of) I have always been a seeker in the spiritual sense and always very ambitious to live life to the full. Whenever I am blessed with special moments or insights in my life, then my first instinct is to share the light and energy that comes from this experience with others. I am particularly keen to reach younger readers and students, still at a formative time in their lives and am always especially gratified when this group of readers in particular is touched by my work.

I suppose, at the core of my creative effort, is an attempt to try and present and illuminate a runway ahead, if you like… Fed directly by my own being and experience – in the hope that it resonates. My personal mode of doing this is, of course, as an writer, artist and as a poet in particular.”

Some of Scott’s poems:

Graced

Graced with the chance

To be here,

Even if only fleetingly,

Embrace

Whatever comes your way

And, in so doing,

However enchanting

Any treasures

You uncover might be,

Their loss

Should never be your concern.

In this matter

Make your heart your queen

And follow her as faithfully

And bravely as you are able,

Just as swelling fruit

Hurries

Towards its own sweetness,

Shine whilst you can

Without fear,

For nothing is as inevitable

As it seems here.

No, not even the fissures

Of loss and decay

We are oft led to expect

In this temporal world.

Such is true joy’s

Absolute certainty.

Its slow-lit fuse

That burns holes

In the shabby shroud

Of death forever.

The Day is done

The day is done

And no one is immune,

It’s true.

That sense of a voyage

Slips seamlessly past,

Though there is a beginning;

An end to everything.

And yet a sense of connection,

Some bejewelled purpose too.

Like the child

Whose way ahead

You’ve already lit,

Or the lover you’ve yet to meet.

Many such moments

Come and go, as they must,

Melting away

Into the space we are given.

But what endures for me

Is a persistent resonance,

Some heady wish

For access again

To a sense of wonder

In the stream of things,

That, this time round,

It might just be possible

To keep in my heart

A little longer.

So tarry with me awhile

And we will see

What we can do

To tenderly explore

Beneath the frail shell

Of all we’ve since become.

Trusting that,

Maybe within

Such smoothly sculpted casing,

And still delicately enclosed,

Might just lie the silky lustre

Of some lavish

And joyful communion,

Waiting for its chance

To grip

And catch the light again.

Here I am

Here I am,

As if to confound myself,

Just as I ever was.

Seemingly little more

Than an excited dervish,

Forever chasing shadows,

Knowing that,

Come what may,

Beauty will continue

To throng around me,

Till I am no more.

What was it I never told you?

For isn’t it true that,

Without fear,

We are capable of anything…

The smell of fresh rain,

Like gunpowder on the lawn,

Embellishes the day,

As the summer rips on.

And we can but wonder

As, flawless,

Early morning moisture,

Stranded on a leaf,

Glints in the sunshine.

The world watches

And waits for us, it seems…

As if to suggest tis best

To have an unquiet response

To the nature of things.

So drink deep of your sorrows,

Drink deep of your joy

And then love

And live restlessly

For as long

As the charged ache

In your spirit allows.

Despite what we imagine

Despite what we imagine

In our sometime pain,

Beset

Either by aching anticipation

Or subsequent loss,

Lovers are never found by chance.

So tell that to the trees,

Who’ve seen it all

Countless times before

And can only stand apart

In the meadow of life

And wait

For us to dream again,

Like some broken hearted waif

On a grimy street,

For whom only the predatory

Are likely to stop.

For not even fool’s comfort

Can cling on there

To inhibit notes of caution

That would otherwise

Trim our wings,

Spoil any such dividend.

And so much more too!

Seems like

We always had this coming.

Our needs, till met,

Like rising sap,

Like clotted pollen in the air.

As it always is

In beauty’s sweet surrender,

Desire is the　irresistible　pull

That draws us steadily

Onto one another

And then fruits.

You were in me all along.

There’s an intricate chain

There is an intricate chain

At work here,

From one fleeting moment

Of grace to another.

A myriad of links,

Far too long and interlaced,

Even within one

Tentative soul’s journey,

To fathom.

And so the challenge

Is a simple one,

To keep

Bringing light to bear.

And to do so

With all the good faith

One can muster,

Till some chinks appear.

A fateful knock at your door

That will surely come again.

The choice then

Will always be a stark one;

Between surrender of sorts,

Or recourse to hollow dreams,

Long since eclipsed by time.

Our conjoined instincts,

Like sexual fire,

Come and go.

But that’s the way of things.

Forever in the background

A persistent, elemental energy

That didn’t ask to be here,

Just is…

And when it bursts forth

Tis a wonderfully furious thing.

As we toil and spin

As we toil and spin,

Pause and gather in

The stillness,

Whenever you are able.

Trusting that,

Time after time,

This might bind

Ever deeper

In your soul

And, one day,

Come gloriously to bear.

Otherwise how vain

A deceit is distraction,

Leaking into everything

To spoil our chances.

And, in so doing,

Look how we fashion

Instead a raw

And unnecessarily restless

Sadness in our hearts.

For it is what it is,

This life,

No more and no less…

And everyday

It shines upon us

With a patience

That is inestimable.

So take heart from this

And simply surrender

In moments,

As best you can,

Even if only in modest ripples

That gently caress

The shore of your dreams.

Life collects

Life collects,

Pools around you.

It paints its highlights.

Nothing there

You can destroy

Or begin again.

Calm in aquamarine beauty,

Barely a hint

Of surf’s snowy trim.

Today the sea is out

But will come again.

For the moment,

On the beach,

My love and I,

Naked and blissful

As can be.

In the soft,

Sun baked sand

History

Between my toes.

Sense how

Even the smooth stones

Ache

With stories of their own

In the shuddering

Light of day.

Whenever you can

Whenever you can conjure

The stillness to notice,

There is

A sense of the ancient

Hanging in the air.

A lingering spiritual fragrance,

Full of knowing,

That dresses

Contemporary journeys

Like ours.

And always set against

Such a broad tapestry,

Long woven too

With telling details

That confirm who we are,

Albeit still as raw

And naive as any infant.

All the more so

When stood, toe to toe,

With the luminosity

Of days gone by.

And embarking, as best we can,

On the benevolent opportunity

Of one thin slice

Of a chosen life,

However glorious,

Or loaded with pathos

This eventually becomes.

No chance of tragedy

Here though!

For we truly are,

As we come to recognise

Ourselves to be,

Mere receptacles.

Gilded chariots

That our spirits ride out,

But for a hallowed moment in time.

The merest splash of presence

In the serried halls of wonder.