New Writer 2020: Patrick James Errington

Patrick James Errington is the author of two pamphlets of poetry, Glean (ignitionpress, 2018) and Field Studies (Clutag Press, 2019), and the French translator of PJ Harvey’s poetry collection, The Hollow of the Hand (Âge d’Homme, 2017). Individual poems have appeared in magazines and anthologies such as Best New Poets, Poets.org, Oxford Poets, Boston Review, The Iowa Review, Copper Nickel, The Cincinnati Review, and Best New British and Irish Poets, and have won or been commended for international prizes such as the Wigtown Poetry Competition, The London Magazine Poetry Competition, the Plough Prize, and The National Poetry Competition.

Originally from Alberta, Canada, Patrick holds an MFA from Columbia University and a PhD from the University of St Andrews. He has been living in Edinburgh for the past several years, where he is now a teaching and research fellow at the University of Edinburgh.

Follow Patrick on Twitter(this will open in a new window).

Writing sample

To a Boyhood in Winter

What more

to say? What

of this snow

-rankled sky?

This low lie

of comfort some

pale lip on these

car-furrowed streets

these towns strewn

with what should be

called living but

isn’t. Even wolves

curl around their

rocking hearts

to sleep.

Eventually even

I will leave you

be as you ask.

Patrick says:

"I’m immensely grateful to institutions like the Scottish Book Trust for supporting writers who make their homes here in Scotland. In times of walls and borders, it’s an enormous gift to be so warmly adopted by one’s country and an honour to be entrusted with helping to keep alive the memory of one of its poets – I hope I can live up to the task."