Throughout July we asked you to send in your flash entries about water. It turned out to be a very popular topic with lots of entrants to wade through! There could only be one winner though and we’re pleased to announce Eleanor Fordyce, aged 74 from Angus, swept us away with her poem, “Seafarer”. 

She wins a copy of “Argonauts of The Scottish Isles” by Robin Lloyd-Jones which was very kindly donated by the publisher, Polygon. Thank you to everyone who entered the flash competition. The next one is limited to photos so get your camera ready!

---

Seafarer

Why have you come?

It is his day to deny who we are.
He sits at a table by the window
studying the horizon, a fine line
between blues. His rocking boat
dips down into forgotten depths,
rises fleetingly to untangle the nets
of a knotted head. Quietly
he sighs his own song of the sea
and always there is the refrain:
Smuggle me out of here.
Take my ship to port.

About Eleanor

Eleanor Fordyce has been addicted to reading since the excitement of her first book, Noddy Gets Into Trouble, (still in her possession) and read sitting on the pavement outside Woolies. It was no surprise to anyone that she became an English teacher. On retiral, free from wielding the red pen, she joined Angus Writers and began to produce her own poetry and short fiction. She also benefited from the inspirational teaching of the late Jim Stewart, poet and lecturer in Creative Writing at Dundee University.

Brought up in Aberdeenshire, her first language is that of the north-east and so she writes in both Doric and English. She has twice won Aberdeen University’s Toulmin Short Story Prize, as well as the Doric Festival Cup and the Scottish Association of Writers’ Poetry Trophy. Her work has been published in various anthologies and magazines including The Interpreter’s House, Pushing Out The Boat, The Herald’s Art Section, The Scots Magazine, Scottish Book Trust and Amnesty International.

At present, she is working on poems relating to different aspects of silence, stemming from Angus Writers’ Residency in the new Scriptorium at Arbroath Abbey.