Alice Oswald
Alice Oswald
Alice Oswaldis a British poet from Reading, Berkshire who won the T. S. Eliot Prize in 2002...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionPoet
information manner ought system verb warmth
Wind ought to be a verb or an adverb. It isn't really anything. It's a manner of movement of warmth and cold: a kind of information system of the air.
might poem remade totally
At each moment, a poem might grow into a totally different shape. It is not so much like working in a garden. It is more as if you remade the garden every day.
greek taught teacher
When I was 16, I was taught by a wonderful teacher who let me ignore the Greek syllabus and just read Homer.
ideal job meant poet
I never meant to be a full-time poet: I started out as a gardener, an ideal job for a poet because your head is left free.
novels people poem straight totally
People are so used to reading novels now, they just read a poem straight through to get the meaning. And that's something totally different from the slow way you read something if it's a tune; which to me a poem has to be.
addition anonymous cast courage inhabit lose men miss names neighbours ordinary stripped trip
Stripped of its plot, the 'Iliad' is a scattering of names and biographies of ordinary soldiers: men who trip over their shields, lose their courage or miss their wives. In addition to these, there is a cast of anonymous people: the farmers, walkers, mothers, neighbours who inhabit its similes.
coming exercise force great hard humans point view
I have this exercise where I force myself to look out from the flower's point of view at these great walloping humans coming down the path, and try, just try and feel it from their point of view because it's a different world to them, a fascinating hard one.
easiest either human mentality relaxing seems simplest slip structure work
I think it is the easiest mentality for a human being to be either colonized or to colonize. The structure of either the slave or the master seems to be the simplest and the most relaxing one to slip into. Either you are a slave, and you don't have to think for yourself, or you're a master, and you don't have to work for yourself.