Jeremy Hooker
Encyclopedia
Jeremy Hooker is an English poet, critic, teacher, and broadcaster. He grew up on the edge of the New Forest village of Pennington, about two miles north of Lymington. After studying at the University of Southampton, Hooker lectured at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. First living in Aberystwyth, but then in 1969 moving to the nearby Welsh-speaking parish of Llangwyryfon
. Hooker left Llangwyrfron around 1980, when he spent two years as a creative writing fellow at Winchester School of Art.
In 1984 he left the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. Subsequently he lived for a while in Holland, teaching at the University of Groningen, before moving to Frome in 1989 and teaching creative writing at the Bath College of Higher Education. This later became Bath Spa University and he was the first director of its MA in Creative Writing. Jeremy Hooker spent the academic year 1994/5 teaching at Le Moine Collage in upstate New York. More recently he was a lecturer at the University of Glamorgan, from where he retired in 2008, becoming Emeritus Professor of the University.
He has published eleven full length collections of poetry (including selected and collected works), critical studies of
John Cowper Powys
and David Jones
, as well as collections of literary essays. He has also edited works by Richard Jefferies
, Edward Thomas
, Frances Bellerby
, Wilfred Owen. In addition Hooker has been involved with works for radio, including "A Map of David Jones".
When asked, in an interview, about influences Hooker listed Richard Jeffries, Thomas Hardy
, Edward Thomas and later David Jones, along with the American Objectivist poets William Carlos Williams
and George Oppen
. Hooker began reading Jefferies when he was twelve. Another important early influence was the fact that Hooker's father was a landscape painter, who had a great love of Constable
.
The move to Wales in 1965 was important for Hooker's development both as poet and as critic, and during the 1970s he established himself as an important critic of Welsh writing in English (Anglo-Welsh literature
) and was involved with teaching a course in Welsh writing in English, which had been created by Ned Thomas at Aberytwyth.
But the tension of being a "foreigner" in Wales led Hooker selling the house in Llangwyryfon, in 1980: "I owe no place more than Llangwyryfon, but it has taken eleven years of living there, in an agricultural and predominantly Welsh-speaking community, for us to realise that our particular kind of dislocation can't be mended by settling permanently where other people belong". While living there he published three books of poetry that deal with his earlier experience of life in Southern England: Soliloquies of a Chalk Giant(1974) (winner in 1974 of the Welsh Arts Council Literature Prize), Landscape of the Daylight Moon (1978), Solent Shore (1978), and a fourth collection that focussed more on his experience of living in Wales: Englishman's Road (1980).
A concern with place and landscape, in relation to personal identity, is central to both Hooker's poetry and to his critical writing, as is " the relation between poetry and the sacred".
Jeremy Hooker's collected poems The Cut of the Light. Poems 1965-2005 was published by Enitharmon in 2006, and in 2007 Moment of Earth: Poems and Essays in Honour of Jeremy Hooker, edited by Christopher Meredith, was published by Celtic Studies.
Llangwyryfon
Llangwyryfon is a village in the county of Ceredigion, Wales. It lies on the B4576 about 8 miles to the south and east of Aberystwyth. The village lies in the valley of the River Wyre and contains the roadbridge where the B4576 crosses the Wyre downstream of which lies the confluence of the rivers...
. Hooker left Llangwyrfron around 1980, when he spent two years as a creative writing fellow at Winchester School of Art.
In 1984 he left the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. Subsequently he lived for a while in Holland, teaching at the University of Groningen, before moving to Frome in 1989 and teaching creative writing at the Bath College of Higher Education. This later became Bath Spa University and he was the first director of its MA in Creative Writing. Jeremy Hooker spent the academic year 1994/5 teaching at Le Moine Collage in upstate New York. More recently he was a lecturer at the University of Glamorgan, from where he retired in 2008, becoming Emeritus Professor of the University.
He has published eleven full length collections of poetry (including selected and collected works), critical studies of
John Cowper Powys
John Cowper Powys
-Biography:Powys was born in Shirley, Derbyshire, in 1872, the son of the Reverend Charles Francis Powys , who was vicar of Montacute, Somerset for thirty-two years, and Mary Cowper Johnson, a descendent of the poet William Cowper. He came from a family of eleven children, many of whom were also...
and David Jones
David Jones (poet)
David Jones CH was both a painter and one of the first generation British modernist poets. As a painter he worked chiefly in watercolor, painting portraits and animal, landscape, legendary and religious subjects. He was also a wood-engraver and designer of inscriptions. As a writer he was...
, as well as collections of literary essays. He has also edited works by Richard Jefferies
Richard Jefferies
John Richard Jefferies was an English nature writer, noted for his depiction of English rural life in essays, books of natural history, and novels. His childhood on a small Wiltshire farm had a great influence on him and provides the background to all his major works of fiction...
, Edward Thomas
Edward Thomas
Edward Thomas may refer to:People:*Edward Beers Thomas, American judge*Edward J. Thomas , librarian and author of several books on the history of Buddhism*Edward Lloyd Thomas, Confederate American Civil War general...
, Frances Bellerby
Frances Bellerby
Mary Eirene Frances Bellerby was an English poet.Born in Bristol, Frances Bellerby was a clergyman's daughter, and lost her only brother in the First World War. Having worked as a teacher and journalist, she married John Rotherford Bellerby, a Cambridge academic, in 1929...
, Wilfred Owen. In addition Hooker has been involved with works for radio, including "A Map of David Jones".
When asked, in an interview, about influences Hooker listed Richard Jeffries, Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy, OM was an English novelist and poet. While his works typically belong to the Naturalism movement, several poems display elements of the previous Romantic and Enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural.While he regarded himself primarily as a...
, Edward Thomas and later David Jones, along with the American Objectivist poets William Carlos Williams
William Carlos Williams
William Carlos Williams was an American poet closely associated with modernism and Imagism. He was also a pediatrician and general practitioner of medicine, having graduated from the University of Pennsylvania...
and George Oppen
George Oppen
George Oppen was an American poet, best known as one of the members of the Objectivist group of poets. He abandoned poetry in the 1930s for political activism, and later moved to Mexico to avoid the attentions of the House Un-American Activities Committee...
. Hooker began reading Jefferies when he was twelve. Another important early influence was the fact that Hooker's father was a landscape painter, who had a great love of Constable
Constable
A constable is a person holding a particular office, most commonly in law enforcement. The office of constable can vary significantly in different jurisdictions.-Etymology:...
.
The move to Wales in 1965 was important for Hooker's development both as poet and as critic, and during the 1970s he established himself as an important critic of Welsh writing in English (Anglo-Welsh literature
Anglo-Welsh literature
Anglo-Welsh literature and Welsh writing in English are terms used to describe works written in the English language by Welsh writers. It has been recognised as a distinctive entity only since the 20th century...
) and was involved with teaching a course in Welsh writing in English, which had been created by Ned Thomas at Aberytwyth.
But the tension of being a "foreigner" in Wales led Hooker selling the house in Llangwyryfon, in 1980: "I owe no place more than Llangwyryfon, but it has taken eleven years of living there, in an agricultural and predominantly Welsh-speaking community, for us to realise that our particular kind of dislocation can't be mended by settling permanently where other people belong". While living there he published three books of poetry that deal with his earlier experience of life in Southern England: Soliloquies of a Chalk Giant(1974) (winner in 1974 of the Welsh Arts Council Literature Prize), Landscape of the Daylight Moon (1978), Solent Shore (1978), and a fourth collection that focussed more on his experience of living in Wales: Englishman's Road (1980).
A concern with place and landscape, in relation to personal identity, is central to both Hooker's poetry and to his critical writing, as is " the relation between poetry and the sacred".
Jeremy Hooker's collected poems The Cut of the Light. Poems 1965-2005 was published by Enitharmon in 2006, and in 2007 Moment of Earth: Poems and Essays in Honour of Jeremy Hooker, edited by Christopher Meredith, was published by Celtic Studies.
Poems
- Poetry Introduction, number 1. With John Cotton; John Daniel; Douglas Dunn; Elaine Feinstein; Ian Hamilton; David Harsent; V.C Horwell; Bartholomew Quinn. London: Faber & Faber, 1969.
- The Elements (Triskel Poets) (pamphlet). Davies 1972.
- Soliloquies of a Chalk Giant. London: Enitharmon, 1974.
- Landscape of the Daylight Moon. London: Enitharmon, 1978.
- Solent Shore. Manchester: Carcanet, 1978.
- Englishman's Road. Manchester: Carcanet , 1980.
- A view from the Source: Selected Poems. Manchester: Carcanet, 1982.
- Itchen Water. (pamphlet) Winchester: Winchester School of Art Press, 1982.
- Their Silence a Language (with the artist Lee Grandjean). Ipswich: Ipswich Borough Council, 1990.
- Master of the Leaping Figures. Petersfield, Hampshire: Enitharmon, 1987.
- Groundwork with Lee Grandjean (Illustrator) Nottingham: Djanogly Art Gallery, 1998.
- Adamah. London: Enitharmon, 2002
- Our Lady of Europe. London: Enitharmon, 1997.
- Arnolds Wood. Birmingham: Flarestack, 2005
- The Cut of the Light. Poems 1965-2005. London: Enitharmon, 2006.
Literary Studies and Essays
- John Cowper Powys. Cardiff: University of Wales Press (for the Welsh Arts Council) 1973.
- David Jones : An Exploratory Study of the Writings. London: Enitharmon, 1975.
- John Cowper Powys and David Jones: A Comparative Study. London: Enitharmon, 1979.
- Poetry of Place : Essays and Reviews 1970-1981. London: Carcanet, 1982.
- The presence of the past : Essays on Modern British and American Poetry. Bridgend, Wales: Poetry Wales Press, c1987.
- Imagining Wales : A View of Modern Welsh Writing in English. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2001.
- Welsh Journal. Bridgend, Wales: Seren, 2001.
- Upstate: A North American Journal. Exeter, Devon: Shearsman Books, 2007.
Works edited by
- Alun Lewis, Selected Poems. Selected by Jeremy Hooker and Gweno Lewis; foreword by Robert Graves; afterword by Jeremy Hooker. London: Unwin, 1981.
- Frances Bellerby, Selected Stories. Edited and introduced by Jeremy Hooker, London: Enitharmon 1997.
- Alun Lewis Inwards Where All the Battle is: A Selection of Alun Lewis's Writings from India. Jeremy Hooker, ed. , David Gentleman, Illustrations. Newtown: Gwasg Gregynog, 1997.
- Jefferies, Richard, At Home on the Earth: A New Selection of the Later Writings of Richard Jeffries. Selected and introduced by Jeremy Hooker ; with illustrations by Agnes Miller Parker. Totnes, Devon: Green Books, 2001.
- Edward Thomas, The Ship of Swallows : A Selection of Short Stories, edited and introduced by Jeremy Hooker; Preface by Myfanwy Thomas. London: Enitharmon, 2005.
- Richard Jefferies. The Story of My Heart: My Autobiography. Introduction by Jeremy Hooker.
- Wilfred Owen, Mapping Golgotha : Letters & Poems. Selected, edited, and with an introduction by Jeremy Hooker; illustrated by Harry Brockway. Newtown, Powys: Gwasg Gregynog, 2007.
Essays in Collections, etc
- The Experience of Landscape, Paintings, Drawings and Photographs from The Arts council Collection (exhibition catalogue) London: South Bank Centre, 1987.
- Art of Edward Thomas. Jonathan Barker, ed.. Wales: Poetry Wales Press, 1987.
- Poetry in the British Isles: Non-Metropolitan Perspectives edited by Hans Werner Ludwig and Lothar Fietz. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1995.
- Word Play Place : Essays on the Poetry of John Matthias, ed. Robert Thomas Archambeau. Athens, USA: Swallow Press, 1998.
Miscellaneous
- David T. Lloyd. "Interview", Writing on the Edge: Interviews with Writers and Editors of Wales. Amersterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi, 1997.
- Christopher Meredith, ed. Moment of Earth: Poems and Essays in Honour of Jeremy Hooker. Aberystwyth: Celtic Studies, 2007.
External links
- http://www.poetryarchive.org
- http://www.poetryfoundation.org
- BBC Radio 4 profile and link to audio interview