A Sleepwalk on the Severn

by Alice Oswald

Overview

An early work from the acclaimed poet of Memorial and Falling Awake, appearing for the first time in the United States.

A Sleepwalk on the Severn is a reflective, book-length poem in several registers, using dramatic dialogue. Ghostly, meditative, and characterized by Alice Oswald’s signature sensitivity to nature, the poem chronicles a night on the Severn Estuary as the moonrise travels through its five stages: new moon, half moon, full moon, no moon, and moon reborn.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393355970
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	11/13/2018
Pages:	64
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.30(d)

About the Author

Alice Oswald is the author of eight books of poetry, including Memorial and Falling Awake, winner of the Costa Poetry Award and Griffin Poetry Prize. Elected as the University of Oxford Professor of Poetry in 2019, she lives in Bristol, United Kingdom.

Editorial Reviews

"Alice Oswald is making a new kind of poetry. There is nothing fancy about it—she is doing the job, simple and enormous, of reworking the model for the twenty-first century."

Jeanette Winterson

"A sublime poet of the natural world."

Herald

"Oswald joins Ciaran Carson, Iain Sinclair, Hughes and ultimately Joyce himself as one of the great celebrants of the genius loci, the spirit of place, or what the Irish call dinnseanchas, lovingly elaborated topographical lore.… Oswald has soul in riverfuls."

Guardian

"[Oswald’s work] leaves me shaken and speechless."

Edward Hirsch

"If there’s any justice in the poetry world, the title [poet laureate] should be offered to this gardener-classicist who is bringing the British landscape to life in poetry again."

Daily Telegraph

"[Oswald is] a perpetual inspiration."

The New Yorker - James Wood

"Alice Oswald’s poems are vivid and distinct, alert and deeply, physically engaged in the natural world."

Poetry Daily

"Oswald’s radiant poetry of remembrance will not be readily forgotten."

Independent Whig.

"You won’t experience the full effect of Alice Oswald’s poetry unless you read her words aloud—she writes with a mind for sounds, syllables, and the patters of speech, informed and inspired by oral storytelling traditions."

Bustle