Garden by Richard Hague

“In the thirty years I’ve known Richard Hague as a friend and poet, I’ve been constantly surprised at his wonder over the natural world and the depth to which his poems go to explore and celebrate it. Garden is a rich addition to this lifelong exploration, filled with toughness and affection, mystery, cycles of death and rebirth, and a search for one’s place on earth. The poems are richly detailed and deeply felt, and live with a spirit beyond the mere stylistic considerations that today too often substitute for an authentic journey. Garden is a book of amazement at the largeness of the ordinary, at what is revealed in the turn of every spade of ground.”–Joseph Enzweiler

About the Author

Richard Hague is a member of the Southern Appalachian Writers workshop, Editor Emeritus of Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel, an annual anthology of contemporary Appalachian writing, and aboard member of Cincinnati’s InkTank, a nonprofit literacy and literature organization.
Richard Hague is a writer and teacher. His recent collections of poems include Garden (Word Press, 2002), Alive In Hard Country (Bottom Dog Press, 2003, and winner of the 2004 Book Of The Year Award in Poetry from the Appalachian Writers Association) and The Time It Takes Light (Word Press, 2004). He was named Ohio Poet of the Year by the Ohio Poetry Day Association in 1985 for Ripening (Ohio State University Press.) His collection Milltown Natural: Essays And Stories From A Life was nominated for a National Book Award. His extensive poetry collection/teaching and writing memoir Lives Of The Poem was Wind Publications in 2005.
Richard Hague was born and raised in Steubenville, Ohio, educated at Xavier University in Cincinnati and has done post-graduate work at Oxford. The winner of three Ohio Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowships in two genres, he has taught literature, creative writing, and interdisciplinary studies for 40 years.