Bio
James Hathersage was born three hundred metres from the North Sea, on the Essex Coast. He was educated and grew up in Essex, then moved to London aged 18 to train as a doctor and subsequently an Orthopaedic Surgeon.
He served a 5 year short service commission in the Royal Navy as a Surgeon Lieutenant.
Pastimes have included many thousands of miles of ‘rag and stick’ sailing and subsequently gentle motor boating in the Netherlands has added to his nautical experience. A love of country walks, bird life and flowers explains the subject matter of some of his authored books. A long career in medicine, and contact with so many thousands of individual patients, brings more than a superficial understanding of people. Is James Hathersage a romantic? Well that is for readers to decide.
James Hathersage is a writer of Traditional Poetry, which is, by virtue of his chosen grammar and vocabulary, deliberately written so as to be easily accessible to the majority of the English speaking world, courtesy of the World Wide Web.
James Hathersage feels that it is not difficult to write Poetry to try to impress other Poets, but that he believes is a very limited audience. Writing Poems that are songs without music makes them attractive to both read and to listen to, now that, he judges to be a worthy goal. If those Poems are additionally, easily set to melodies then that is further evidence of their value in the wider world.
However, allegories, hidden meanings and writing figuratively undoubtedly brings fun for the writer, and the reader.
Is this Author spiritual in outlook and in his writings? Well that again the reader can decide. If a Poem touches on the supernatural does that mean that the Author is a believer in such things? Perhaps James Hathersage is just hopeful of some such parallel existence.
Three Example Poems
From the A to Z of Animal Poetry. From the rhythm of the trees. From Poetica Amoris.
Fernando Frog
Lonely on the lily pad
Fernando bides his time,
His glistening skin is olive green
with just a streak of lime.
With fingers spread symmetrically,
His knees and ankles flexed,
No need to be a genius,
To know what he'll do next.
Faster than the eye can see,
From motionless to flight,
He leaps into the murky depths
and passes out of sight.
You peer to search his watery home,
Will he come into view?
Although Fernando's vanished,
Be sure he's watching you.
***
My Magnolia
Each happy Spring I'm waiting here,
'till gone is winter's snow,
When I can then appreciate
Magnolia's fulsome show.
Then just to tease my memory,
As Summer months roll by,
Here and there one pretty flower
points upward to the sky.
I know that you have cousins new,
With pretty white stars bright,
For me your bold original,
In every way seems right.
Magnificent Magnolia,
My Tulip tree of old,
Although your blooms are cream and pink,
Their quality is Gold.
***
A Rose in a Million
The dog rose that flowers on the cliff tops,
And turns all her blooms t'wards the sun,
From her all these pretty creations,
That so bless our gardens have come.
Pink roses that gleam in the sunshine,
Yellow roses that brighten the shade,
White roses that climb up a house side,
Red roses that stand on parade.
You may have seen thousands of roses,
And marvelled their scent and their charms,
But, one rose, in a million is waiting,
To sweep you away in her arms.
***
To understand more about this Poet, below is the record of a Question and Answer session.
Question. When did you become such a prolific Poet?
Answer. Having enjoyed writing Poetry since childhood, most of my published Poems were composed over the last fifteen or so years. Retirement has provided additional time and opportunity.
Question. Given the range of Poetry, how do you choose the subject of your Poem?
Answer. Choosing the subject of a poem is achieved in several ways. Many of the poems reflect my interest in nature and the natural world, people and everyday events. Others come from individual thoughts and experiences, and choosing occasionally a title or subject matter that has been requested by a friend or acquaintance.
If I select a theme such as Bird Poetry that provides many individual subjects all in one go from amongst the many species of birds that unknowingly offer themselves as titles for Poems. It is true to say that you can write a Poem about literally anything, ‘A Tape Measure’, where the subject is a Noun, ‘Swimming’ where the subject is part of a Verb, or even ‘Across’ where the subject is a preposition! In other words if you want to choose the subject for a Poem close your eyes, flick through the pages of a dictionary, stop, put one finger on the page and there is your subject for today, and who would be any the wiser.
Question. How long does it take to write a Poem?
Answer. The answer I would give is, ‘it depends who is writing them’. If that sounds trite please look more deeply at the answer. If I enlarge my answer by saying that a Poem may take two or three days to write, and then there is revision over the next month on several occasions, which can result in an extra verse being added or substantial changes being made, that represents my own compositional efforts.
Yet, I have written Poems ‘Out of Conflict’, War Poems, where I have literally written down what seems to be being dictated to me, and a Poem is ‘composed’ and completed within twenty-five minutes without the need for any revision. The first time that happened to me I was not ready for it, now I am. I leave you to fathom out that little conundrum, to your own satisfaction.
Question. What is the trickiest part of writing Poetry?
Answer. My interest is Traditional Poetry, which involves Rhythm and Rhyme. I try to make my written words flow, so that the rhymes appear natural rather than contrived, and the same is true when choosing and then following a particular rhythm, or occasionally varying the rhythm deliberately within the same poem. Choosing the vocabulary can be a problem within the confines of rhyme and rhythm and at the same time trying to avoid the criticism of having ‘swallowed a dictionary’.
Question. What do you hope that readers will get out of your Poems?
Answer. That they will understand, and hopefully enjoy, my perspective on a particular subject in my descriptive Verse, based on what they believe to be my experiences in life. I genuinely hope that they will derive enjoyment from what they see, and interpret in my more creative work. I would like to think that they may, occasionally, be actually surprised to be able to make a particular interpretation. It would be nice to think of readers enjoying translating an allegory or a metaphor, which I must accept will not necessarily be in the way that I originally intended when writing it.
Question. What do you get out of your Poems?
Answer. Pleasure at nearly every turn, except for those turns where I feel great sorrow.
Question. Is there any particular group of Poems that you are especially proud of?
Answer. There are individual Poems in each of my books, which I am proud of, for example the allegorical poem “Talking Water” (in Poetry Born of Water), about the elderly spinster meeting the young child, and “The Maiden in the Peristyle” (in Poetica Amoris) which is much deeper in its intended meaning.
Question. What are your ambitions for the future of your Poems?
Answer. Many of my Poems are printed inside Greeting Cards, each with a prepared and relevant photograph on the front. This is my little ‘cottage industry’. Unfortunately the commercial side of the Greeting Card industry, I have been led to believe, and have experienced, does not cater for people like me and prefers to create everything itself, ‘in house’. However I do harbour the hope that one day my Poetry cards will have a much wider distribution. At present my ‘cottage industry’ results in the free distribution of Greeting Cards, prepared to a professional standard, to friends, relatives and Charities. The format appears to be well received from the onward recipients both in this country and overseas! There is an opportunity here, Greeting Card makers!