Featured Poet: Scott Coykendall, Wentworth

Scott teaches professional and creative writing classes at Plymouth State University where he is a member of the English Department. With his wife and two daughters, along with various cats, dogs, fish, and chickens, he lives and writes in Wentworth, NH.

Of his poem, Scott writes:

A mutual friend, John Gilgun, emailed me a few years ago and asked me to write a birthday poem for our friend Jeff's fortieth birthday. Jeff and I had had a lot of great times, but I don't do occasional poems very well. I sat to write down about a road trip and lightning strike that we had been involved in. It was one of our favorite stories. But the war in Iraq was starting, the television was still showing the twin towers falling every night, and I was having a hard time excluding the world around me from my poem about this comic moment. And, in truth, Jeff WAS one the first people I called the night of 9/11. Finally, I surrendered and let the world into the poem. No one has asked me to write a birthday poem since.

Click here for Scott Coykendall's poem in pdf
 

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