Senseless Hours

by Peter Lawson

Senseless Hours is Peter Lawson's first collection of poetry. A post-romantic, cosmopolitan and dryly humorous collection, its main themes are love, foreignness, England and Jews in the twenty-first century. Peter Lawson lives in London where he teaches comparative literature at The Open University. He edited the award-winning anthology, Passionate Jewish Poetry in Britain since 1945 (2001). Among his scholarly works are Anglo-Jewish Poetry from Isaac Rosenberg to Elaine Feinstein (2006) and articles on British and American literature. Senseless Hours appeared to critical 'This all-too-slim volume...displays considerable wit, intellectual pizzazz and technical audacity.' (Michael Horovitz) 'These brisk personal poems may seem, initially, close to prose, but own ultraviolet light.' (Dannie Abse) 'Peter Lawson's wry, witty poems are psychologically and socially astute.' (Ruth Fainlight) 'At once amused, bitter and sad, this is a voice which deliberately avoids familiar melodies, to make a new shape out of its own discords.' (Elaine Feinstein) 'Peter Lawson’s Senseless Hours contains wide-ranging (and sometimes refreshingly angry) reflections on contemporary Europe, Englishness and Jewish identity. One of the most striking poems is "Atonement", which comprises an intelligent and belligerent reaction to the "parodies of authentic feeling" in the film. The entire collection is constantly (and wryly) on guard against such "feeling".' (Antony Rowland) 'The easy conversational surface of Peter Lawson’s poems is each one opens into underlying domains of unease, doubt, self-doubt and the testing of convention and appearance. Cloaked in the quotidian, a passionate integrity is operative here. Here is a poetic mind intent on the keen questioning of contemporary values combined with a frank self-questioning. As poet-observer, Lawson submits himself and his own subjectivity to exactly the same rigorous critical examination as whatever else he scrutinises. Steeped in both Jewish and English awareness, Lawson’s (deliberately?) chosen persona is that of “the outsider within”.' (Richard Berengarten)

48 pages, Paperback

First published February 4, 2013