Flowering Off the Chrome

By John Hughes

Flowering Off the Chrome is a collection of symbolic poetic projections into the rural landscape. Removed from the urban sprawl, set during midsummer and narrated through a series of dramatic monologues, Hughes has created a rich sequence of see-sawing yarns about the comings and goings on a farm he knew as a child. Looking back through the eyes of an old man who chose to remain and work the land, Hughes confronts the genius loci and the idea of home. It is unusual to find such a young poet plying such a rural path, but these playful and well cured parables succeed because they germinate from a wistful charm. Galvanised by the work of poets dating back to Virgil and colloquially owing much to Robert Frost and Edward Thomas, Hughes asks what is our relationship to Nature? What is it that we nurture there? As with all of Hughes' work it broods with tenderness and chooses solitude as a tool of illumination. As always, a vigorous undercurrent of restlessness floods his language.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Hughes
• Release date: Oct 10, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466097513

John Hughes

John Hughes was born in Colwyn Bay, North Wales, Great Britain in 1970.He has worked as a milkman, landscape gardener, newspaper photographer,occasional proof reader and a fish terminal goods inspector. He currentlylives in Oslo, Norway. His other works are listed as follows: POETRYAphelion (1992),Recuillément (1993)Black Tin Deed Box (1996)PrestonZeitgeist (1994) Money & Make-Believe (1994)Room Twelve (1995)The Fiend that He Became (1995) Poetry from Beyond the Dashboard(1996) Touché (1997) The Night is Young (1997) 58th Parallel (1998)The Plant Collector (1998) O Livro das Letras Casa (1999) Replica (1999)Passports for the Journey to the Mad Dam (2000) Flowering Off the Chrome(2000) Rolling Over the Bones & the Running Through Poems (2002) WhenHope Can Kill & the Midnight Sun Poems (2005) Orpheus’ Loot (2007) Death Rattle (2009)Skin of Teeth (2010) Singeing of Beard (2012)FICTION Aphrodisiacs’ Spaghetti (2001) The Wondrous Adventures of Dip& Dab (2002) Deeper Tangled Grass (2005)The Bloody Shoots Burst Out of Uswith Love & Bullets at their Roots (2010)

Book preview

Flowering Off the Chrome is a collection of symbolic poetic projections into the rural landscape. Removed from the urban sprawl, set during midsummer and narrated through a series of dramatic monologues, Hughes has created a rich sequence of see-sawing yarns about the comings and goings on a farm he knew as a child. Looking back through the eyes of an old man who chose to remain and work the land, Hughes confronts the genius loci and the idea of home. It is unusual to find such a young poet plying such a rural path, but these playful and well cured parables succeed because they germinate from a wistful charm. Galvanised by the work of poets dating back to Virgil and colloquially owing much to Robert Frost and Edward Thomas, Hughes asks what is our relationship to Nature? What is it that we nurture there? As with all of Hughes' work it broods with tenderness and chooses solitude as a tool of illumination. As always, a vigorous undercurrent of restlessness floods his language.

Flowering Off the Chrome

John Hughes

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2000 John Hughes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Cover Art: 'Calm Before the Storm' Hans Thoma 1906 photographed by John Hughes