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Review
"'Her poems... are propulsive, forward-pulsing, knitting one line to another. This poet is acutely alive in the world.' The Economist"
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
Review
"'Oswald's narrative skill has always been exemplary and she demonstrates it abundantly once more.' Guardian"
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
It took me a while to get into, but once I did, I was knocked sideways by this dazzlingly inventive and original collection of poems. I can't recall reading anything quite like this, ever. It may be an odd comparison, but reading Oswald's poems is a bit like exploring a place you know well, but in the hands of an expert guide who helps you see it (or more accurately, sense it) for the first time. Right from the first `Seabird's blessing', which somehow manages to resonate perfectly with a centuries-old Celtic spirituality, you're treated to an almost `from the inside' perspective on the natural world and wider universe, its wonders opened up and explored, the power behind it sung (`Leaf', `Excursion to the Planet Mercury') and celebrated until it awes us to silence (`Woods etc'). At times the writing seems so `elemental' that it seems to burst the bonds of language, and you sense Oswald searching for the words to construct something new, perhaps especially with lines like `a looked at thing' (`Ideogram for Green'), trying to express the almost inexpressible, hammering the insubstantial into the shape of language.
Even where the focus shifts to the human, that sense of the wonder of it beyond words, remains, especially in the poems about Oswald's children: `Poem for Carrying a Baby out of Hospital' is a remarkable description of how it feels to be responsible for a new, fragile and vulnerable life, something I don't think could be captured more perfectly. There's a variety of tone, too, with an almost elegiac mourning of how wild nature passes us by as we are absorbed in the mundane (`Another Westminster Bridge', `For Many Hours there's been an Old Couple Standing at that Window' and `Sisyphus'). Don't let this collection pass you by - superb.
Even where the focus shifts to the human, that sense of the wonder of it beyond words, remains, especially in the poems about Oswald's children: `Poem for Carrying a Baby out of Hospital' is a remarkable description of how it feels to be responsible for a new, fragile and vulnerable life, something I don't think could be captured more perfectly. There's a variety of tone, too, with an almost elegiac mourning of how wild nature passes us by as we are absorbed in the mundane (`Another Westminster Bridge', `For Many Hours there's been an Old Couple Standing at that Window' and `Sisyphus'). Don't let this collection pass you by - superb.
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Oswald's simply titled 3rd collection is a slim volume of luminous poetry.
The collection itself draws on Oswald's strong connections to nature, and includes many poems that echo the songs of the woods, of owls, of the moon, of stones and rainbows. There are other poems too, slightly more philosophical in content, such as the rich and sweeping "Various Portents"; a Christmas poem filled with ancient wonder and modern light:
Many visions, many digitally enhanced heavens,
All kinds of glistenings being gathered into telescopes:
Fireworks, gasworks, white-streaked works of Dusk,
Works of wonder and or water, snowflakes, stars of frost ...
Elsewhere, her poetry juxtaposes the natural and the synthetic to glorious effect, words that you hear rather than read (from Owl):
an owl elsewhere swelled and questioned
twice, like you might lean and strike
two matches in the wind.
Sometimes I think I can hear Ted Hughes in the distance, not borrowed from, but almost pre-supposed. In his well-known poem, The Horses, the world appears to the light of the sun as: "Slowly detail leafed from the darkness." It seems Oswald's "Woods Not Yet Out" are behind it all:
the rain, thinking I've gone, crackles the air
and calls by name the leaves that aren't yet there
Oswald's poetry is intelligent and fresh. If there is any hope in this world for poetry, then surely here is one of the poets who carries it. Oswald is a poet of such sensitive intensity and quiet skill, that every subject she touches upon is made finer by her words.
Readers looking for poetry with delicacy, confidence and individual flair; poetry that echoes nature, and poetry that is distinctly contemporary in craft, will find this book a treasure.
[FYI: This book was awarded the 2006 Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize.]
The collection itself draws on Oswald's strong connections to nature, and includes many poems that echo the songs of the woods, of owls, of the moon, of stones and rainbows. There are other poems too, slightly more philosophical in content, such as the rich and sweeping "Various Portents"; a Christmas poem filled with ancient wonder and modern light:
Many visions, many digitally enhanced heavens,
All kinds of glistenings being gathered into telescopes:
Fireworks, gasworks, white-streaked works of Dusk,
Works of wonder and or water, snowflakes, stars of frost ...
Elsewhere, her poetry juxtaposes the natural and the synthetic to glorious effect, words that you hear rather than read (from Owl):
an owl elsewhere swelled and questioned
twice, like you might lean and strike
two matches in the wind.
Sometimes I think I can hear Ted Hughes in the distance, not borrowed from, but almost pre-supposed. In his well-known poem, The Horses, the world appears to the light of the sun as: "Slowly detail leafed from the darkness." It seems Oswald's "Woods Not Yet Out" are behind it all:
the rain, thinking I've gone, crackles the air
and calls by name the leaves that aren't yet there
Oswald's poetry is intelligent and fresh. If there is any hope in this world for poetry, then surely here is one of the poets who carries it. Oswald is a poet of such sensitive intensity and quiet skill, that every subject she touches upon is made finer by her words.
Readers looking for poetry with delicacy, confidence and individual flair; poetry that echoes nature, and poetry that is distinctly contemporary in craft, will find this book a treasure.
[FYI: This book was awarded the 2006 Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize.]
Format:Paperback
Alice Oswald asks questions continually in her poetry, striving to understand the world:
what is water in the eyes of water
loose inquisitive fragile anxious (Sea Poem)
Elswhere she gives us extraordinary structures:
A song that assembles the earth
out of nine notes and silence (Birdsong for Two Voices)
And my current favourite of her poems Owl - a poem that can only be rendered in its whole form:
Owl
last night at the joint of dawn
an owl's call opened the darkness
miles away, more than a world beyond this room
and immediately, I was in the woods again
poised, seeing my eyes seen,
hearing my listening heard
under a huge tree improvised by fear
dead brush falling then a star
straight through to God
founded and fixed the wood
then out, until it touched the town's lights
an owl's elsewhere swelled and questioned
twice, like you might lean and strike
two matches in the wind.
Other poems I loved in this collection include: 'The mud-spattered recollections of a woman who lived her life backwards', which is amazingly literal and heart-breaking. And especially, 'Various Portents' - just that, exactly, and an encapsulated history of the world. 'Tree Ghosts' is a ballad, chiefly about Clifford Harris, the last man in England to see a red squirrel. I loved also 'Another Westminster Bridge' and the poem following it, 'Hymn to Iris', which includes a "three-moment blessing for all bridges" and ends thus:
And may I often wake on the broken bridge of a word,
Like in the wind the trace of a web. Tethered to nothing
Her poetry has a gorgeously flowing feeling to it, like the rivers she writes about, nothing if not adventurous and swift-paced, tightly rhythmic, pastoral and thrumming with the natural world's sights, sounds and a profound understanding of how nature works on our feelings.
what is water in the eyes of water
loose inquisitive fragile anxious (Sea Poem)
Elswhere she gives us extraordinary structures:
A song that assembles the earth
out of nine notes and silence (Birdsong for Two Voices)
And my current favourite of her poems Owl - a poem that can only be rendered in its whole form:
Owl
last night at the joint of dawn
an owl's call opened the darkness
miles away, more than a world beyond this room
and immediately, I was in the woods again
poised, seeing my eyes seen,
hearing my listening heard
under a huge tree improvised by fear
dead brush falling then a star
straight through to God
founded and fixed the wood
then out, until it touched the town's lights
an owl's elsewhere swelled and questioned
twice, like you might lean and strike
two matches in the wind.
Other poems I loved in this collection include: 'The mud-spattered recollections of a woman who lived her life backwards', which is amazingly literal and heart-breaking. And especially, 'Various Portents' - just that, exactly, and an encapsulated history of the world. 'Tree Ghosts' is a ballad, chiefly about Clifford Harris, the last man in England to see a red squirrel. I loved also 'Another Westminster Bridge' and the poem following it, 'Hymn to Iris', which includes a "three-moment blessing for all bridges" and ends thus:
And may I often wake on the broken bridge of a word,
Like in the wind the trace of a web. Tethered to nothing
Her poetry has a gorgeously flowing feeling to it, like the rivers she writes about, nothing if not adventurous and swift-paced, tightly rhythmic, pastoral and thrumming with the natural world's sights, sounds and a profound understanding of how nature works on our feelings.
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