WELCOME

I have been writing and studying poetry across the various seasons of my life, but only recently have I decided to bring my work to the public, along with my interest and enthusiasm for poetry itself.

...so how does this interest you...

apart from being a genuine search for any experience of truth we can find, and with guaranteed moments of shared parallels and a joke thrown in now and then?
I am tempted to say: "hang on to your hat!"

New Adventures in Exploratory Thought and the Compelling Nature of communicative Writing

Now that is a long title for a book – and of the sort you don't see very often these days – and a brave way to introduce a web site. But don't be put off, on this site you will find various examples of my poetry and that of others in both written and spoken form that will not strike you deaf or blind. I have also used my interest as a film maker and digital artist to bring a further measure of art to this adventure in communication. The keyword above all though is 'poetry', including that of other poets. It is a quest for truth that is inherent in the act of poetry – operating as a redeemable philosophy – a relatively deep search that casts a net and attempts to snag illusive and vital clues to our existence and purpose. There is no agenda in this and I champion no causes –

my work is merely life-illuminated – reimagined and written in slant.

You will also find included on the 'influences' page, some interesting references to my favourite poets and their work – along with readings of their poems, delivered by me on both the 'video' and 'readings' pages.

Apart from placing my own work in the public eye, my hope is to engage with the human soul and suggest that poetry is inside all our heads and in elements of our daily lives. Can poetry provide many of the answers we seek to the deeper and more profound difficulties life presents us with?

It may also offer a map
to help reset the compass in times of stress, frustration
and disorientation.

From the beginnings of my own involvement with poetry in general, I liked the way it illuminated people who seemed to be in agreeance with my own thoughts and feelings – or pointed out new ways of looking at shared or analogous situations. In fact, there are poets, dead and alive who I feel have walked with me for most of my adult life and offered great support with their words and the way they chose to communicate. I hope my work and other aspects of this site will be useful to you in a similar way.

Peter Hague

Gain of Function

Death is coming –
its shadow sits on every heart,
as grief leaks its fertile blood,
one grave at a time –

Not too young –
an unsettling euthanasia.
Delivered by obsession,
and a shrinking world.

An insidious revolution,
overwhelming our burdens
with a crushed prosperity
and the silence of peace.

As the first wave rebounds
from the squalor of population,
we wear its shadow
like a stiff, new coat.

©2020 Peter Hague
Published on Twitter –
May 2020

Click on the image of my latest book
to flip it …

“Genuine poetry can communicate
before it is understood.”

T. S. Eliot – American Poet – 1888-1965

"Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash."

Leonard Cohen – Canadian poet/songwriter 1934-2016

Dirt Road

I feel like an old car abandoned on a dirt road
with grass growing through my heart.
Parked some years ago,
where the shrinking tank of hope ran dry
and my engine lungs gave out –
gasping a last, exhausted sigh.
The wind continued down the road,
with my unrolled maps and my smiling destinations;
they emerged like traitors through a steaming grill
and the rigid countenance of my headlight stare.
It was a refusing wind, as some winds are...
no longer passing my shape along the ways;
no longer brushing back my carefree hair.
And there is certainly no road to the future from here,
only the speeding grass hiding my zeroed dials –
and the almost perfect hours when nothing smiles
and birds sing my headlights to sleep.

©Copyright 2017 Peter Hague. All rights reserved.
Published in The Interpreter's House – issue 67 – 2018.

Check out my 'Gain of Function' anthology on the books page and follow me on Twitter.

Over the last year or so, I have been publishing some new poems direct to Twitter which have now been published in traditional book form, along with many new poems from the same period – it has become a powerful anthology containing some of my best work. I found that the immediacy of being able to go 'live' with new work to be a very dynamic experience – and these new anthologised poems seem to be charged with a desirable energy – a directness – almost a reckless excitement.

About Me

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"It is only one's thoughts that fill a room with something more than furniture."

Wallace Stevens – American poet – 1879-1955

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