Blueroads: Selected Poems(Salt Modern Poets)

At the heart of "Blueroads -- Selected Poems" by Peter Hughes are two powerful poetic sequences which appear in their entirety. "The Metro Poems", from 1992, consists of one poem for each station of the Rome Metro. Nigel Wheale described it as "intensely pleasurable, integral writing snatched from life in the city, foiling the world above ground with the ever-present metaphorical clatter of tunnels beneath the ruins." This is lyric poetry which is both sensuous and intelligent. The writing is characterised by an outstandingly varied and musical sound-world. The second long sequence is "Paul Klee's Diary" (1995). Peter Hughes takes as his starting point the diaries that the great Swiss twentieth-century painter kept until the end of the first world war. Those texts are then used to refract and filter more contemporary concerns and meditations on life, relationships, music, painting and poetry. As an abstract painter himself, Hughes brings a distinctive understanding and empathy to his subject matter. Throughout this book there are references to key figures and influences from the worlds of music, painting and poetry.These include contemporary musicians such as Barry Guy, Keith Tippet, Kenny Wheeler and Tom Waits. Then there are the poets: Pasolini, James K. Baxter, Frank O'Hara, George Oppen, Barry McSweeney, John James and Peter Riley. The rhythmic deftness and verbal inventiveness of these poems is matched by multi-layered patterns of organisation, often through constellations of imagery that flicker backwards and forwards through a text. And through it all there is a persistant celebration of the human spirit, fully at home on the Earth.

Table of Contents:
Departure Bedroom Interval La Madonna di Monte Berico Christmas Morning, L’Aquila Pot-Plant Blues Cassette: Side 1 Blues Cassette: Side 2 Premonition The Seasons Near Luton Ode on St. Cecilia’s Day The Metro Poems ottaviano flaminio spagna barberini repubblica termini vittorio manzoni s. giovanni re di roma ponte lungo furio camillo colli albani arco di travertino porta furba numidio quadrato lucio sestio giulio agricola subaugusta cinecittà anagnina via cavour colosseo circo massimo piramide garbatella s. paolo magliana marconi fermi laurentina laurentina Quintet for St. Cecilia’s Day Education Policy Apples Night Driving Psyche in the Gargano Paul Klee’s Diary Epistolary Poem to Simon Marsh on Bank Holiday Monday Nearer Keats’ Bicentenary than Shelley’s Accidentally To Peter Riley on his Sixtieth Birthday Ode on Hearing Simon Fell Play “Improvisation: On Seeing Barry Guy in Sainsbury’s” West Coast Tenor Legacy Keith Tippet Plays Tonight Joe Pass Live in Every Hedge Real Book

About the Author :
Peter Hughes was born in Oxford in 1956, lived in Italy for several years, and is now based in Norfolk. He lives with his wife Lynn in an old coastguard cottage which is creeping ever closer to the cliff edge. He is a poet and painter who also runs Oystercatcher Press.

Review :
Peter Hughes' poetry stages the self with wit and precision at the meeting point of contradictory forces from opposed directions, like the past and the present, high art and underfoot mess, institute and instinct. The narrator absorbs or deflects these disparate demands with a virtuosic repertoire of disparate responses: serious, sardonic, musical, accusatory, grandiose, etc., bound by the shaping force of linguistic confidence. Major items control long stretches of the route: the presence of an ancient rotting city, the idea of heavenly music, the art and person of Paul Klee: halls of multi-faceted mirrors by which we see what we are to the exact syllable of foolishness and wisdom. It swallows the whole, it refuses purism. Everyone should be glad to find a truly modern poetry which raises so many meaningful smiles.