He went to Hjeltnes Horticulture School (Hjeltnes videregående skole) in Ulvik (1927 and 1933–34), Norwegian University of Life Sciences at Ås (1930) and the State Research Center (Statens forsøksgardt) at Hermannsverk in Sogn og Fjordane (1931-1933).

A well-known example, in the Norwegian original: In English translation: Aside from writing his own poems, he was internationally oriented, and translated poems by Alfred Tennyson, William Butler Yeats, Robert Browning, Stéphane Mallarmé, Arthur Rimbaud, Stephen Crane, Friedrich Hölderlin, Georg Trakl, Paul Celan, Bertolt Brecht and Robert Bly to Norwegian.

He also wrote poetry in homage to fellow poets William Blake, Paul Celan, Gérard de Nerval and Emily Dickinson.

He was also inspired by classical Chinese poetry, e.g. in his poem "T`ao Ch`ien" in the collection Spør vinden.

Nynorsk kultursentrum manages both the Olav H. Hauge Centre and the Ivar Aasen-instituttet in Ørsta.