Jeremy Hooker: The
Cut of the Light. Poems 1965-2005
(Enitharmon Press, London, 2006; hardcover, 373pp, £25;
isbn 1904624273)
Jeremy Hooker is often referred to as a poet of place. Considering this
fact, it's perhaps slightly ironic that his work is difficult to
locate within the contemporary poetic landscape. In the early poems there
are certainly echoes of Ted Hughes, both in his rural themes and mythologizing
concerns. But Hooker's is a much quieter voice than that of Hughes.
There isn't the sense of underlying violence, either in the subject-matter
or the diction. And there's none of the bludgeoning Anglo-Saxon
rhythmic thumping (which I like in the context of Hughes' early
work, don't get me wrong). But there is the same sense
of connectedness with the nuances of the natural world and an attempt
to understand and humanise it using psycho-mythological models.
Once in late summer
Through oakleaves darkened by an autumn breath
I glimpsed the falling river
Torn to shreds of foam, and fancied
That one fleck of whiteness swiftly gone
Might be the fleeting silk
Of an enchantress in your tales.
[ 'Cwm Morgan', from 'Poems to Carol']
But maybe this is putting the cart before the horse. Perhaps Hooker
is attempting to understand the human in terms of the natural world as
well as vice versa, and, by equating the personal and the mythological
within the context of its place in the natural world, give it a quasi-religious
spin. Not that there's anything 'New Age' ish or hippy-slack
about this work. Hooker's poetry is nothing if not contained, controlled
and dignified. His is a gentle voice, true, especially in the earlier
work, echoing the sound-world and devotion to an un-idealised but much-loved
landscape, of Edward Thomas or even Ivor Gurney. And his work is perhaps
vaguely reminiscent of the better Georgians in its rural concerns, though
it lacks the forced sentiment that blighted many of the poets associated
with that movement (again, Georgian is not necessarily pejorative: D.
H. Lawrence was in most of Edward Marsh's anthologies, and it is
often forgotten that Ezra Pound was invited to contribute. He would have
done too if he'd got back to Marsh with some work in time). But
these are just echoes. Hooker's poetry has great, if subtle, individuality.
To the unknown labourer
No monument
For time to smear;
No statue
That a man conceives
To trap himself in stone.
Only earth
Where a night's rain
Washed out his prints;
Chalk where his life
Was moulded;
Fields like hands after work,
Rough palms spread.
The two poems above are taken from 'Landscape of the
Daylight Moon', which is the earliest set of poems in this Collected.
There follows a major shift in the second, 'Soliloquies of a Chalk
Giant' from 1974. In this sequence/ collection man becomes one with nature,
the chalk giant acting as mouthpiece for both, as an ancient man-made
creation carved into the surface of the natural world he becomes
all but at one with it owing to the passage of time. And the diction
changes accordingly. A hardness and spare-ness of language is introduced.
The prefatory poem, setting the giant's position in the landscape and
his consequent relationship with mankind, reads simply and sparsely:
I was with the first inhabitant
In these hills and I stayed here
After him, at the foot of his grave
It prepares the way for an almost Eliot-like consideration of time and
the burdens and fascination of history, both geographical and archaeological.
The Giant's Shadow
I am the giant who carries a giant
On his back.
This is my comrade.
Is he alive or dead?
I stoop and cry out
Let go, let go.
When I look up
The shadow hangs over me
With crossed wings...
... How heavy the shadows are!
I wrestle with them all day long,
Finger clutched round my cold stave.
This is without doubt the most didactic section of the book, and it's
interesting to see Hooker flexing his mythological muscles. But Jeremy
Hooker's poems are, on the whole, more likely to coax a response
from a reader than to seek explicitly to elicit a specific one (there
are of course exceptions to this, such as the poem 'For John Riley' which
opens with the direction: 'Consider also a channel' but these
are rare). So you're not often told what you're supposed
to be thinking or feeling in this book, and I like that. It gives the
writing a little of the ease of a Lee Harwood or a John Ash, in that
you often don't realise how an effect is being produced because
the writing is disingenuously simple. This gives the work an emotional
impact that, for me, lifts it above the writings of more consciously
assertive rural poets of the last century such as R. S. Thomas. Increasingly,
as Hooker's work progresses, the mythologizing element gives way
to a sense of humankind's, or a specific man or woman's,
place in an individually specific landscape, both as it 'is' to
an outsider and as it appears to the individual as a psycho-geographical,
or geo-social construct. This creates a sense of continuous dialogue
and flux, with which the reader almost casually interacts, the tension
at the same time providing a psychological and structural tautness. The
overall effect is of a great sense of humanity, and also humility, in
the face of nature: the traditional two-way conversation between poet
and reader is mediated, and put into perspective, by the almost tautologically
ubiquitous presence of the natural world. So human beings are always
seen in, and understood according to the dictates of, a particular landscape.
Titchborne
There is no place deeper in earth –
where the young quick river grows
and cressy streams feed it
on beds of purest chalk stones;
and the rhymes of settlement
remember a life before his,
from Vernal Farm through meadow,
copse and ploughland, and St Andrews
standing against curve and swell,
where Catholic and Protestant
share a roof, and members
of his family who succeeded him
figure in stone...
My only complaint about the book as a whole, which is an absolutely
beautifully produced hardback by the way, is that Jeremy Hooker is something
of a quiet master of prose poetry and there's not nearly enough.
Very few writers seem prepared to engage with nature, or even the naturalistic,
in this form (probably because it's difficult to do convincingly).
So forgive me for quoting this interlude in full. It's from the
1993 collection Their Silence is a Language and is untitled:
'Walking all day in the forest, I saw again how impossible
it would be to convey a true impression of the ancient woods of oak
and beech without showing that they are movements of light and shadow
and air as much as countless tree shapes; or rather that the natural
'pattern' continually changing around one comes from the interaction
of forces and things which together make a world of the most delicate
and subtle movements, and strong, deep-rooted forms. And this is only
to sketch the surface, without regard to the interdependence of growth
and decay, or of the many forms of life each with its own world in
the world that human senses perceive; as for example insects under
a scale of bark, a grey squirrel leaping from tree to tree, a woodpecker
crossing a glade.'
The transparency of thought and the naturally musical rhythm of Hooker's
language combine here to create a sensual, yet thoughtful, landscape;
there's tremendous skill involved in maintaining this level of
interest in a naturalistic context while retaining such clarity and simplicity
of language, and it's a level of skill that I think many poets
would struggle to approach in this form. And the poem illustrates perfectly
the inclusiveness and interconnectedness of 'things' (I somehow
want to use the word 'stuff' for its earthiness) in Hooker's
work.
There's absolutely no fall-off of quality in Hooker's later
work either. In fact Hooker continues to experiment, albeit gently, with
his style and the work develops something of a different tone. There's
a new openness, a conversational intimacy, in sequences such as 2002's Groundwork that
almost suggests a very Anglo New York School influence (maybe just the 'York
School' I guess).
This book, a lifetime's work, describes the developmental arc
of a poet who has clearly devoted himself to honing his craft and it
shows. I'm going to risk it: I'd say it represents a substantial,
beautifully understated and rather softly spoken, contribution to British
poetry. But I think I'll leave the last word to Jeremy Hooker.
Workpoints
Norfolk in April drought:
a cracked land.
Where do we begin?
Just here, say, at the point
in the fields where you see
the pinnacles of Salle church rise,
and Cawston, the naked stub
of the tower,
and the roofs of Moor Farm.
Just at this spot,
standing in a field
near the barn-studio
where oak trunks
are delivered, hitting
the brick floor with a 'dumb' sound
that pleases you.
Here, in a land of angels
carved from wood, and angels
sculpted in stone.
Copyright © Nathan Thompson, 2007.
All quotations are copyright © Jeremy Hooker, 2006.
