Dr. Scott Foran’s lifelong passion for reading is the focus of his newly published chapbook, a reader’s miscellany, released by Bottlecap Press. This short collection of poems features a dozen poems, each centered on his daily ritual of reading and the authors and books that have inspired him.
“Initially, I didn’t set out to create a collection of poems focused on reading,” said Foran, an Assistant Professor of English at Montreat College. “But as I was looking through my materials, I started to realize I had quite a few of those sprinkled here and there, so I just pulled them all together into one collection.”
Foran’s poetry features books such as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Moby-Dick, Don Quijote, Steppenwolf, Macbeth, Jean-Paul Sartre’s Nausea, and Wise Blood, the debut novel by American author Flannery O’Connor. In addition, Foran reflects on the writings of Dylan Thomas and Franz Kafka.
“With each of the poems that’s focused on a book, I try to take something that ties directly to the story,” Foran said. “It might be focused on a character or a particular event that takes place in the story. There’s also an opening and closing poem that kind of bookend it, and those are about the reading process. In the middle, there’s a poem about unreliable narrators.”
Since the poems are primarily connected by their focus on different books rather than a unifying theme, Foran felt that the word “miscellany” was fitting for the title.
“It’s a word that sort of incorporated what I was trying to do, which is bring together these various titles and authors into a single collection,” he said. “It’s always nice to have something finished and completed and then send it out in the world to see what happens.”
A voracious reader since his childhood—when he would fill a grocery sack of books at his local library—Foran admits that his home and office contain more books and bookcases than any other kind of furniture or possessions. For him, reading is a hobby more people should embrace in their lives.
“With the convenience of technology, it forces us to move so fast that we don’t take the time to sit and ponder,” he expressed. “As Socrates said, the unexamined life is not worth living. We need to take the time to slow down and consider things from other people’s perspectives. We’re bombarded by sound bites and memes, but that’s not the same thing as taking an hour to sit down and read from a book. That takes a lot more patience, and it takes practice for people these days.”
This fall, Dr. Foran is scheduled to teach courses on composition, poetry writing, and American literature at Montreat College, all of which align with the themes of his latest publication. Additionally, two of Foran’s poems, “longing for persephone” and “Sisyphus,” will be published in the spring 2025 edition of Carmina Magazine.
Foran is also seeking publication for two other poetry collections. One is a chapbook titled mad as birds, which focuses on the struggles faced by individuals and families dealing with dementia. The other is a full-length collection titled hammer through daisies, which explores the cyclic nature of existence and the simultaneous presence of fear and hope.
