Scott Clifford Cairns (born 1954 in Tacoma, Washington) is an American poet, memoirist, librettist, and essayist.

Cairns earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Western Washington University (1977), a Master of Arts degree from Hollins University (1979), a Master of Fine Arts degree from Bowling Green State University (1981), and a PhD from the University of Utah (1990).^[1]

Cairns has served on the faculties of Kansas State University, Westminster College, University of North Texas, Old Dominion University.^[2] He recently retired as Curators' Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Missouri.^[3] While at North Texas, Cairns had served as editor of the American Literary Review. He was founding director of Writing Workshops in Greece, an annual, 4-week workshop during the month of June, located in Thessaloniki and on the island of Thasos. Since 2015, he has also served on the poetry faculty of the Seattle Pacific University low-residency MFA program in creative writing, and currently serves as that program's director as it moves to Whitworth University in Spokane. With Carolyn Forché and Ilya Kaminsky, he also directs Mystikós: A Writers Retreat in Greece.

Cairns is the author of twelve collections of poetry, one collection of translations/adaptations of Christian mystics, one spiritual memoir (now translated into Greek and Romanian), a book-length essay on suffering (now translated into Greek), and co-edited The Sacred Place with Scott Olsen, an anthology of poetry, fiction and nonfiction. It won the inaugural National Outdoor Book Award (Outdoor Literature category) in 1997. He wrote the libretto for "The Martyrdom of Saint Polycarp", an oratorio composed by JAC Redford, and the libretto for "A Melancholy Beauty", an oratorio composed by Georgi Andreev. Cairns's poems have appeared in journals including The Atlantic Monthly, The Paris Review, The New Republic, Image, and Poetry, and have been anthologized in Upholding Mystery (Oxford University Press, 1996), Best Spiritual Writing (Harper Collins, 1998 and 2000), and Best American Spiritual Writing (Houghton Mifflin, 2004, 2005, and 2006).

He is married to Marcia Lane Vanderlip and they have two children, Benjamin V. Cairns and Elizabeth V. Cairns-Callen. He has a brother, Steve Cairns, who currently resides in Hong Kong, teaching at an International School.

• 2006 Guggenheim Fellow
• 2014 The Denise Levertov Award

• Another Road Home, Poetry (July–August 2009)
• Eremite, Poetry (January 2009)
• Idiot Psalms, Poetry (January 2009)

• Partaking in the Holy Mysteries Scott Cairns Interview Part I,
• Partaking in the Holy Mysteries Scott Cairns Interview Part II,
• Scott Cairns Interview/ Scott Cairns Interview
• Scott Cairns on Reading, Writing, and Responsibility
• Scott Cairns: Words Lead You To Ideas
• Scott Cairns
• Scott Cairns: A Poet's Dialogue
• Scott Cairns Findingod

Bibliography

• Correspondence with My Greeks (Slant Books, 20240 ISBN 978-1-63982-172-3
• Lacunae (Paraclete Press, 2023) ISBN 978-1-64060-881-8
• Anaphora (Paraclete Press, 2019) ISBN 978-1612618388
• Slow Pilgrim: The Collected Poems (Paraclete Press, 2015) ISBN 978-1-61261-657-5
• Idiot Psalms: New Poems (Paraclete Press, 2014) ISBN 978-1-61261-515-8
• Endless Life: Poems of the Mystics (Translations/Adaptations: Paraclete Press, 2014) ISBN 978-1-61261-520-2
• The End of Suffering: Finding Purpose in Pain (Nonfiction: Paraclete Press, 2009) ISBN 978-1-55725-563-1
• Love's Immensity: Mystics on the Endless Life (Translations/Adaptations: Paraclete Press, 2007) ISBN 978-1557255259
• Short Trip to the Edge: Where Earth Meets Heaven—A Pilgrimage, Spiritual Memoir: (HarperSanFrancisco, 2007) ISBN 978-0-06-084322-9
• Compass of Affection: Poems New and Selected, Poems: Paraclete Press, 2006, ISBN 978-1-55725-503-7
• Philokalia (Poems: Zoo Press, 2002)
• Recovered Body Poems: George Braziller Inc., 1998 ISBN 9780-8076-1437-2
• The Sacred Place [co-edited with Scott Olsen] (Anthology: University of Utah Press, 1996)
• Figures for the Ghost Poems: University of Georgia Press, 1994, ISBN 978-0-8203-1601-7
• Disciplinary Treatises (Poetry Chapbook: Trilobite Press, 1993)
• Sermons for the Wary (Poetry Chapbook: Franciscan University Press, 1993)
• The Translation of Babel (Poems: University of Georgia Press, 1990)
• The Theology of Doubt (Poems: Cleveland State University Press, 1985)
• Finding the Broken Man (Poetry Chapbook: Window Press, 1982)

General references (biographical)

Inline citations