“YOU MUST NEVER SLEEP UNDER A MAGNOLIA when the tree begins to flower like a glimpse of Flesh when the flower begins to smell as if its roots have reached the layer of Thirst upon the unsealed jar of Joy Alice, you should never sleep under so much pure pale so many shriek-mouthed blooms as if Patience had run out of Patience”
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Alice Oswald is a renowned British contemporary poet, born in 1966. Her poetry focuses on natural landscapes and delves into the relationship between humans and nature. Oswald's work is characterized by its unique style and concise language, which has won her a wide audience. more
“and I who live in the basement one level down from the world”
“this is the the sound this is the very floor where Grief and his Wife are living looking up”
“6 a.m. scrabbling at the earth”
“breaking out of their mass grave”
“and then (as if a lock had gone and the Spring had broken loose)”
“not looking up but lost in pause”
“what a nervous readiness attached to its lament”
“and working with the same bewitched slightly off-hand look as the sea”
“they say the herons used to hang like lamps here giving off gloom”