Licensed major appliance service technician Lester Scoggin came to poetry—and major appliance repair—late in life.

Born in South Lanarkshire, Scotland, Scoggin fell in love with the stars while supervising his grandfather’s shepherds on the mossy rock-strewn heaths of Athol, the family’s estate. After reading for his Ast.D. at Oxford, he was graduated with a doctorate in celestial mechanics and thereafter was commissioned in the Royal Navy. After a score of years in service, all classified (and the more’s the pity), Scoggin emigrated to the American state of Georgia, located north of Orlando, Florida, where Disneyworld is, where he hoped the climate would benefit his asthma and because of his interest in African-American folkways. Mr. Scoggin is a man whose mojo is working and in rhyming couplets.

Finding employment with Stanwyck’s Appliance of Tallapoosa, a remote, yet bustling, hamlet in middlewestern north Georgia, Scoggin has received certificates of excellence from the Maytag Corporation (now Shun Zho of Shanghai), General Electric, and Whirlpool. His treatises on ratchet gear orientation, translunar insertion, spin cycle ratio distribution loads, and orbital docking maneuvers have been published in Foreign Appliance Repair Policy Magazine, Raumfahrt Concret, and Novosti-Kosmonavtiki. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Major Appliance Relations, serving with former U.S. Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger on the standing unification Committee for the Present Situation of Zurich.

Profoundly religious, Scoggin has been examined and is an elder at the Third Baptist Tabernacle of Tallapaloosa. He also repairs small engines, in his spare time, and has a longstanding interest in action painting and Bauhaus Gestamtkunstwerk. He serves on several boards of directors, including that of the Aesthetic Realism Foundation. “Opposites struggle, not only in the washing machine, but in every individual and every artist,” Scoggin is fond of saying.

He has been blind since 1999, due to an unfortunate Clorox accident. “Os non hendit, quiscil erostrud tetum” as the old saying goes, or as the "coloured" folk in ol' Tallapoose say, "That some bad juju, Slim."

Look away, Dixieland, indeed, for as Mr. Scoggin has oft observed, "Love divine reigns o'er us all" end of fancy quotation as does the spiritual art of St. George now on sale (and for reasonable prices) at Carrbobo's Open Eye Gallery, deep in the heart of America's hippie-and-deer tick infested Paris with one of those French accent things at the end of the word 'Cafe' over the 'e'. Truly, his sacred art lances the pus-ridden boil of counter-culture normality. We should also encourage visitors to North Carolina's Major Appliance Research Triangle area to journey to bucolic, yet otherwise lovely, Franklin Street in Chapel Hill where they may view'st a second art exhibition by St. George at the Jack Sprat Gallery. It consists of 14 intellectually challenging abstract works on board and canvas, including an unhinged diptych. If you do not know what an unhinged diptych is, we suggest you visit the Open Eye show. The works there are more accessible to people of limited intellectual ability. And, if you so dare, you may also venture to the intellectual heart of darkness—Durham, N.C.—where two of St. George's shows may be seen at Joe Van Gogh's, which is across the street from a funeral parlor and Bean Traders, where everyone is cool. 

Incidentally, we wish Mr. St. George luck with his excommunication hearing before the bishops of the Southern District of the Methodist Church. He has denied all charges of blasphemy. He also denies charges that he knowingly, deliberately, and intentionally sought to inculcate Lutheran values into a fourth-grade Sunday School class by repeatedly forcing the children into whose care he was intrusted to view a "Davy and Goliath" DVD. We wish Mr. St. George the best and agree that no lasting theological damage could possibly be done as a result of exposure to claymation. We regret to report that Mr. St. George was indeed excommunicated by the High Synod. The vote was 38-0. His properties have all been seized by the church authorities, and his children will be separated, given new names like Elijah, and raised in Christian homes, probably somewhere in western Kansas, eastern Oregon, northern Maine, and Tennessee.

The American Poetry Alliance is proud to have published all of Scoggin’s work including his premiere effort “Merga in Bootes” (APA, 1979, Out of Print); "Phoebe Cates, I Love You" (APA, 1984, Out of Print); “Armpit of the Great One” (APA, 1983, Out of Print); and "The Christy Turlington Sestinas" (APA, 1985, Out of Print). His latest effort "I Clean the Chicken, or The Oeuvre" (available now at Amazon Books) won the 2007 Hatch County, Georgia, Award for Excellence in Poetry. His next book "I Got Your Goat" shall appear in late 2009, assuming the Dow is above 10,000 at that point in time.

Mr. Scoggin welcomes correspondence at lesscog@icx.net. Due to his heavy travel schedule and prior commitments and because he is totally blind, he regrets that he is unable to respond personally to all those who write.

Α ∞◊ ♣ § ♥ ♦ ∞ Ω

COMING SOON:  Mr. Scoggin has agreed to recite a poem for Internet listening, once all legal issues have been resolved to his satisfaction. This site also soon plans to upload Mr. Scoggin's interview on The David Susskind Show.

Plus!  A New Poem by Mr. Scoggin Every Wednesday, mostly.

ALSO! YOU WILL ALSO ENJOY THIS....

Ask a Poet!

Lovelorn? Lost Your Job? Alcoholic?

Washer on the Fritz?

Worried About the Geopolitical Situation?

Or Do You Just Need a Little Cheering Up?

You've Come to the Most Right Righteous Repairman!

Dr. Scoggin, Ast.D, Has the Answers.

There Will Be No Charge For "Ask a Poet." It Will Be a Free Public Service of the American Poetry Alliance. That is Our Promise to You. (Labor Surcharge May Apply In Mi., Mo., Ky., and Al.)

READ ONE OF Scoggin’s’ POEMS