Born in 1957, Eleanor Livingstone lives in Leven in Fife. She is a poet, reviewer and editor whose work has been published widely in the UK and beyond. A graduate of the University of St Andrews, she has worked both as a para-legal and creative writing tutor. Since 2008, she has been Director of Stanza Scotland’s International Poetry Festival which takes place annually in St Andrews and has established itself as one of the most prestigious in the world, bringing poets from a the airts to socialise, read, booze (well I do when I'm there) and attend a rich catalogue of events. All poets and poetry lovers will be hoping fervently that comparing poets' bookshelves and kitchen units in poetry videos will soon give way to the well loved chat, concourse and petty rivalries of Poetry Festivals and other events soon. Because we are social animals. However, in this poetry video, its the next best thing, we are live in Eleanor's house, hearing her read from her book 'Even the Sea'. Dog lovers beware, this is a sad yin, partly inspired by Rilke's idea that dogs have soul but no heaven to go to. Rilke was fairly obsessed by dogs but that's another story.
Her Profile and poems from the SPL Website here:
In the Mort House
On calm nights when the sky
slips down to drape the land in black,
behind the Mort House shutters
in an outer room the widower
keeps watch; and heat from two fires
cannot stop his shivering. Beyond
the lath-and-plaster white partition
those grim sisters, time and sweet
decay work on relentlessly
to beat the body snatchers
at their game.
His ears alone can hear
the resurrection men steal out
from earth’s dark folds,
boots scraping sparks,
spades finding stone,
then earth, then flesh
wrapped bone
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