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Breeze Block
Chapbook Series book 2
BREEZE BLOCK
A collection of Poetry by Jake Hawkey
About the book:
“I read these poems by Jake Hawkey with excitement and gratitude. Here is a wonderful new voice, full of a spiky energy accompanied by a wild imagination. His language bristles with a sense of its own freshness. His working-class world is alive and quivering. A brilliant collection.�
- Jay Parini, author of New and Collected Poems: 1975-2015
“Breeze Block is a striking collection, asking its reader to engage with its electrifying juxtapositions of a multitude of realities. Here, a line break, stanza break, not once, but on many occasions sends a shiver down your spine—each line being of such staggering beauty. Hawkey has devoted himself to erudition and sophistication, drawing his inspiration from the likes of Rembrandt, Rothko and Jesus’s donkey. There is definitely a sense of an ending that lingers throughout—from hospital wards to a number of romances to a dead goldfish—yet this is a
journey that the reader will never wish to end. As much as Breeze Block is rooted in urban realities, taking us on many London roads and landscapes, evoking a sense of growing up in ‘a city where you cannot leave but you cannot stay�; it is a testimony on how we grapple with grief in these times bereft of hope.�
- Supriya Kaur Dhaliwal, author of The Yak Dilemma
About the author:
Jake Hawkey was born in Greenwich, London in 1990, studied Fine Art at the University of Westminster and MA Poetry at the Seamus Heaney Centre, Queen’s University Belfast. He was selected for Poetry Ireland Introductions in 2020 and is currently a poetry PhD candidate at Queen’s.
BREEZE BLOCK
A collection of Poetry by Jake Hawkey
About the book:
“I read these poems by Jake Hawkey with excitement and gratitude. Here is a wonderful new voice, full of a spiky energy accompanied by a wild imagination. His language bristles with a sense of its own freshness. His working-class world is alive and quivering. A brilliant collection.�
- Jay Parini, author of New and Collected Poems: 1975-2015
“Breeze Block is a striking collection, asking its reader to engage with its electrifying juxtapositions of a multitude of realities. Here, a line break, stanza break, not once, but on many occasions sends a shiver down your spine—each line being of such staggering beauty. Hawkey has devoted himself to erudition and sophistication, drawing his inspiration from the likes of Rembrandt, Rothko and Jesus’s donkey. There is definitely a sense of an ending that lingers throughout—from hospital wards to a number of romances to a dead goldfish—yet this is a
journey that the reader will never wish to end. As much as Breeze Block is rooted in urban realities, taking us on many London roads and landscapes, evoking a sense of growing up in ‘a city where you cannot leave but you cannot stay�; it is a testimony on how we grapple with grief in these times bereft of hope.�
- Supriya Kaur Dhaliwal, author of The Yak Dilemma
About the author:
Jake Hawkey was born in Greenwich, London in 1990, studied Fine Art at the University of Westminster and MA Poetry at the Seamus Heaney Centre, Queen’s University Belfast. He was selected for Poetry Ireland Introductions in 2020 and is currently a poetry PhD candidate at Queen’s.
50 pages, Paperback
Published November 1, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 25, 2021
This is the second chapbook of poetry published by the Class Work Project and it is another brilliant collection.
There is a certain feeling in my mind about this book and how I have a copy which would sound silly to write but it feels like, 'everything happens for a reason' because I could have missed this but I am so glad I have had the opportunity to read this.
I adore Jake Hawkey's writing and I hope I get the opportunity to read more of him. I am not an expert on poetry and my experiences of it are essentially rooted in how I feel when reading. There were words that made me gasp, needing to pause and catch my breath, words that melted my heart with their beauty, words which felt like a punch.
There is often a deceptive simpleness to the work which catches you out, it's playfulness hiding a sucker punch.
The collection is rooted in love, family, grief and sorrow, Hawkey's words speak of a lived experience, of a working class council estate life where poverty and alcoholism present, but also of bonds, of the family, of the shit we do to get by. I want to say Hawkey has a wonderful way of being the observer but it is inaccurate, as it is the reader that is the observer.
Whilst grief and faith feel like overarching themes I also carried on feeling the sense of hope, of carrying on, of recognising and celebrating us - even when it rains.
I hope I remember to come back to this collection and dip in and out again in future because I think Hawkey's poetry will resonate with me more and more as I read it.
The poems that touch on fatherhood hit the hardest as I could identify similar touch points but it is 'Emma' that jumps out the most in capturing something so pure and beautiful.
'I will love you
with the simplicity
of how a child draws a house;'
Highly recommended
There is a certain feeling in my mind about this book and how I have a copy which would sound silly to write but it feels like, 'everything happens for a reason' because I could have missed this but I am so glad I have had the opportunity to read this.
I adore Jake Hawkey's writing and I hope I get the opportunity to read more of him. I am not an expert on poetry and my experiences of it are essentially rooted in how I feel when reading. There were words that made me gasp, needing to pause and catch my breath, words that melted my heart with their beauty, words which felt like a punch.
There is often a deceptive simpleness to the work which catches you out, it's playfulness hiding a sucker punch.
The collection is rooted in love, family, grief and sorrow, Hawkey's words speak of a lived experience, of a working class council estate life where poverty and alcoholism present, but also of bonds, of the family, of the shit we do to get by. I want to say Hawkey has a wonderful way of being the observer but it is inaccurate, as it is the reader that is the observer.
Whilst grief and faith feel like overarching themes I also carried on feeling the sense of hope, of carrying on, of recognising and celebrating us - even when it rains.
I hope I remember to come back to this collection and dip in and out again in future because I think Hawkey's poetry will resonate with me more and more as I read it.
The poems that touch on fatherhood hit the hardest as I could identify similar touch points but it is 'Emma' that jumps out the most in capturing something so pure and beautiful.
'I will love you
with the simplicity
of how a child draws a house;'
Highly recommended
June 25, 2024
a very conversational collection of poetry - explores themes of grief, alcoholism,and working class culture of the uk. i particularly enjoyed the consistent biblical allusion allowing a string of hope to prevail throughout the bleak. matchstick poem 3 encapsulates this a lot - ‘God does not mean for us to make his love a never-ending exercise in misery.� if i had one takeaway from this work it is the indubitably personal nature of each line; the writer is inextricable from this collection.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
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