With a Stranger's Eyes
Published on 31. March 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
86 pages
978-1-84861-970-8 (ISBN)
Description
With a Stranger's Eyes is in two parts. The first, Dutch Girl is set mainly in the Netherlands, where Jeremy Hooker lived for four years with his wife, Mieke. The second, longer part records responses to history and landscapes primarily in South Wales where Hooker has lived since 2001. It also celebrates a number of Welsh writers, such as David Jones, Idris Davies, and Waldo Williams. The spirit of the poetry reflects the Welsh tradition of praise poetry. It is, however, very much the work of an English poet who recognises that he will always be a stranger in Wales, as he was also in Holland. Strangeness, in fact, is a phenomenon that he recognises as integral to our human condition, which may produce an 'art of seeing' below superficial vision of surfaces into perception of the sacred and the quickness of existence.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Exeter
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 140 mm
Thickness: 6 mm
Weight
134 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-84861-970-8 (9781848619708)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Jeremy Hooker was born in 1941 and 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, and now lives in retirement. His academic career took him to universities in England, the Netherlands and the USA and he was Professor of English at the University of Glamorgan before his retirement. As well as his many collections of poetry, including a 'Collected Poems' from Enitharmon and a large 'Selected Poems 1965-2018' from Shearsman Books, Hooker is also well-known as a critic and has published selections of writings by Edward Thomas and Richard Jefferies, as well as studies of David Jones and John Cowper Powys, all of them important to his own creative life. Hooker is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of the Learned Society of Wales, and Emeritus Professor of the University of South Wales.