Stewart Conn

Stewart Conn Poems

Stewart Conn Biography

Stewart Conn (born 1936) is a Scottish poet and playwright, born in Hillhead, Glasgow. His father was a minister Kelvinside Church but the family moved to Kilmarnock, Ayrshire in 1941 when he was five. During the 1960s and 1970s, he worked for the BBC at their offices off Queen Margaret Drive and moved to Edinburgh in 1977, where until 1992 he was based as BBC Scotland's head of radio drama. He was Edinburgh’s first makar or poet laureate in 2002-05. As well as several collections of poetry, his books include a memoir, Distances (2001), from Scottish Cultural Press. Most recently he edited 100 Favourite Scottish Poems (SPL/Luath Press, 2006), a TLS Christmas choice, and 100 Favourite Scottish Love Poems (Luath Press, 2008). He has won three Scottish Arts Council book awards, travel awards from the Society of Authors and the English-Speaking Union, and the Institute of Contemporary Scotland's first Iain Crichton Smith award for services to literature. His collection An Ear to the Ground was a Poetry Book Society Choice, and Stolen Light was shortlisted for Saltire Scottish book of the year.)

The Best Poem Of Stewart Conn

Carpe Diem

From my study window
I see you
below in the garden, a hand
here pruning
or leaning across to snip
a wayward shoot;

a daub of powder-blue in a
profusion of green,
then next moment, you are
no longer there -
only to reappear, this time
perfectly framed

in dappling sunlight, with
an armful of ivy
you've trimmed, topped by
hyacinth blooms,
fragrant survivors of last
night's frost.

And my heart misses a beat
at love for you,
knowing a time will come
when you are
no longer there, nor I here
to watch you

on a day of such simplicity.
Meantime let us
make sure we clasp each
shared moment
in cupped hands, like water
we dare not spill.

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