© Image by
Caroline Forbes
Share this page
These poems come from a special recording for the Poetry Archive:
- Soliloquies of a Chalk Giant, Enitharmon, 1974 - out of print
- David Jones: An Exploratory Study, Enitharmon, 1975 - out of print
- Landscape of the Daylight Moon, Enitharmon, 1978 - out of print
- Solent Shore, Carcanet, 1978 - out of print
-
John Cowper Powys and David Jones: A Comparative Study, Enitharmon, 1979 - out of print
Buy
- Englishman's Road, Carcanet, 1980 - out of print
- Selected Poems of Alun Lewis (editor with Gwen Lewis), Allen and Unwin, 1981 - out of print
- Poetry of Place: Essays and Reviews 1970-81, Carcanet, 1982 - out of print
- A View from the Source: Selected Poems, Carcanet, 1982 - out of print
-
Master of the Leaping Figures, Enitharmon, 1987
Buy
- The Presence of the Past: Essays on Modern British and American Poetry, Poetry Wales Press, 1987
-
Their Silence a Language (with Lee Grandjean), Enitharmon, 1993
Buy
- Writers in a Landscape, University of Wales Press, 1996
- Inwards Where All the Battle Is: Writings from India by Alun Lewis (editor), Gregynog Press, 1997 - out of print
-
Our Lady of Europe, Enitharmon, 1997
Buy
- Groundwork (with Lee Grandjean), Djanogly Art Gallery, 1998
-
Imagining Wales: A View of Modern Welsh Writing in English, University of Wales Press, 2001
- At Home on the Earth: A New Selection of the Later Writings of Richard Jefferies (editor), Green Books, 2001
-
Welsh Journal, Seren, 2001
Buy
-
Adamah, Enitharmon, 2002
Buy
- Jeremy Hooker at the Poetry Café, 2004, CD, private recording in a small edition available via www.jeremy hooker.com
-
Arnold's Wood, Flarestack, 2005
- Edward Thomas, The Ship of Swallows (editor), Enitharmon Press, 2005
- Canto Modern Poets: Jeremy Hooker, CD, Canto Publications, 2005
-
The Cut of the Light, Enitharmon, 2006
Buy
-
Jeremy Hooker Reading from his poems, CD, The Poetry Archive, 2006
Buy
- Mapping Golgotha: A Selection of Wilfred Owen's poetry and letters (editor), Gregynog Press, 2007
- Upstate: A North American Journal, Shearsman Books, 2007
Jeremy Hooker (b. 1941) grew up in Warsash near Southampton, and the landscape of this region has remained an important source of inspiration. Many of his poems were written in Wales, where he has lived for long periods of his life. His academic career has taken him to universities in England, the Netherlands and the USA and he is currently Professor of English at the University of Glamorgan. As well as his ten collections of poetry, Hooker is also well-known as a critic and has published selections of writings by Edward Thomas and Richard Jefferies, and studies on David Jones and John Cowper Powys, all of them important to his own creative life. Other critical titles include Writers in a Landscape and Imagining Wales, whilst Welsh Journal records his life in mid-West Wales during the 1970s.
Jeremy Hooker has described his work as "a poetry of place" and this is certainly evident from his Archive recording. However, Hooker's work is never purely descriptive, tussling instead with issues of belonging and the relationship between man and his environment. This interaction is revealed as a complex network of mutual influence: the landscape of the downs seems timeless but the hillock the plover perches on is a burial mound ('Matrix'). Many poems focus on our desire to assign significance to our surroundings, to "lick it into shape" like the Mother bear her cubs in 'That trees are men walking'. From the pre-historic cave painter through to his boyhood self who "tastes words.../from which he will build a world" ('Strawberry Field') the key question seems to be "how to shape a life" ('Arnolds Wood'), but equally his poems ask how a life is shaped. Whilst all this suggests the importance of roots, there are also many images of fluidity and freedom, of water and flight. Connected to this is the haunting recognition that some essential element remains beyond grasping: like the curlew's cry which is "...mine/Not mine" perhaps it's never possible to be fully at home in the world.
These tensions give his poetry a taut resonance. However, whilst his language is finely chiselled, the poems don't conform to traditional structures; their patterns are like the flow of a waterfall "shaping the ways of change" ('That trees are men walking'). His voice, both controlled and fluid, captures this delicately poised music.
His recording was made for The Poetry Archive on 30 August 2005 at the poet's home in South Wales and was produced by Richard Carrington.
Jeremy Hooker's Favourite Poetry Sayings:
"One is trying to make a shape out of the very things of which one is oneself made." - David Jones, Preface to The Anathemata 1952
Jeremy Hooker has described his work as "a poetry of place" and this is certainly evident from his Archive recording. However, Hooker's work is never purely descriptive, tussling instead with issues of belonging and the relationship between man and his environment. This interaction is revealed as a complex network of mutual influence: the landscape of the downs seems timeless but the hillock the plover perches on is a burial mound ('Matrix'). Many poems focus on our desire to assign significance to our surroundings, to "lick it into shape" like the Mother bear her cubs in 'That trees are men walking'. From the pre-historic cave painter through to his boyhood self who "tastes words.../from which he will build a world" ('Strawberry Field') the key question seems to be "how to shape a life" ('Arnolds Wood'), but equally his poems ask how a life is shaped. Whilst all this suggests the importance of roots, there are also many images of fluidity and freedom, of water and flight. Connected to this is the haunting recognition that some essential element remains beyond grasping: like the curlew's cry which is "...mine/Not mine" perhaps it's never possible to be fully at home in the world.
These tensions give his poetry a taut resonance. However, whilst his language is finely chiselled, the poems don't conform to traditional structures; their patterns are like the flow of a waterfall "shaping the ways of change" ('That trees are men walking'). His voice, both controlled and fluid, captures this delicately poised music.
His recording was made for The Poetry Archive on 30 August 2005 at the poet's home in South Wales and was produced by Richard Carrington.
Jeremy Hooker's Favourite Poetry Sayings:
"One is trying to make a shape out of the very things of which one is oneself made." - David Jones, Preface to The Anathemata 1952
Hear famous voices from poetry's past.
The Poetry Archive depends on donations from public bodies and private individuals. Find out how you can contribute to the work of the Archive.