19 Alice Oswald Quotes for You to Enjoy

Alice Oswald

British Poet

Born: 1966

Made People Poet Think World You

Related authors: Christina Rossetti Elizabeth Bibesco George Herbert Helen Dunmore John Donne Lord Byron Samuel Butler Thomas Babington Macaulay

It's a relief to hear the rain. It's the sound of billions of drops, all equal, all equally committed to falling, like a sudden outbreak of democracy. Water, when it hits the ground, instantly becomes a puddle or rivulet or flood. Alice Oswald

One night, I lay awake for hours, just terrified. When the dawn finally came up - the comfortable blue sky, the familiar world returning - I could think of no other way to express my relief than through poetry. I made a decision there and then that it was what I wanted to do. Every time I pulled a wishbone, it was what I asked for. Alice Oswald

Time World Decision Sky Made Every Think Other Every Time Finally Way Relief One-Night Poetry Lay Could Through Dawn Hours Returning Terrified Comfortable Came Up Familiar Than Blue Blue Sky Just Wanted Then Asked There And Then Awake Express Night Pulled

If you bend a branch until it's horizontal, the sap will slow to a stopping point: a comma or colon, made of leaves grown into one another and over one another and hardened. Out of this pause comes a flower, which unfolds itself in spirals, as if the leaf form, unable to keep to its line, had begun to pivot. Alice Oswald

You Will Made Slow Flower Bend Unable Out Horizontal Spirals Colon Point Had Over Leaf Until Another Leaves Comma Line Itself Branch Begun Stopping Form Unfolds Which Pause Sap Keep Grown Hardened

Spring, when the earth tilts closer to the sun, runs a strict timetable of flowers. Alice Oswald

Strict Spring Earth Sun Runs Timetable Closer Flowers

I think it's often assumed that the role of poetry is to comfort, but for me, poetry is the great unsettler. It questions the established order of the mind. It is radical, by which I don't mean that it is either leftwing or rightwing, but that it works at the roots of thinking. Alice Oswald

Great Me Mind Radical Think Thinking Assumed Poetry Comfort Questions Role Often Established Order Either Which Mean Roots Works

There are times when the voice of repining is completely drowned out by various louder voices: the voice of government, the voice of taste, the voice of celebrity, the voice of the real world, the voice of fear and force, the voice of gossip. Alice Oswald

Government World Fear Gossip Out Various Voice Voices Drowned Force Real Louder Times Celebrity Taste The Real World Real World

Webs are made mostly of spaces. They break easily. They barely exist. They belong to the category of half-things: mist, smoke, shrouds, ghosts, membranes, retinas or rags; and they quickly fill up with un-things: old legs and wings and heads and hollow abdomens and body bags of wasps. Alice Oswald

Old Made Ghosts Easily Web Wings Bags Heads Category Mist Mostly Smoke Exist Up Quickly Legs Break Spaces Hollow Barely Body Fill Rags Wasps Belong

A living tree is a changing, sleeve shape, a wet, thin, bright green creature that survives in the thin layer between heartwood and bark. It stands waiting for light, which it catches in the close-woven sieves of its leaves. Alice Oswald

Waiting Light Living Tree Changing Sleeve Layer Shape Between Leaves Wet Survives Green Which Bark Stands Bright Creature Thin

Most spiders eat and remake their webs every night. Alice Oswald

Every Spiders Eat Web Remake Most Every Night Night

There's a lot of rage in my head. I like the friction that means there is nothing relaxing about writing a poem. I can't afford to relax in any area of life. You have to keep your senses awake to all the complacency that kicks in - particularly for the English. Alice Oswald

Life You Writing Relax Nothing Rage Complacency Kicks Relaxing About Poem Area Head Like Particularly Friction Lot Afford Any Senses Means Your English Awake Keep

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. Alice Oswald

Work You Yourself Human Being Master Think Relaxing Easiest Slip Seems Structure Mentality Simplest Most Human Being Either Slave

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. Alice Oswald

Day You Garden Every Day Every Totally Poem More Remade Shape Like Different Might Much Working Moment Each Grow

At eight, I made a commitment to poetry. Until then, I thought I'd be a policeman. But I went a whole night without sleeping, and the next day the world had changed. It needed a different language. Alice Oswald

It's a question of trying to take down by dictation what's already there. I'm not making something, I'm trying to hear it. Alice Oswald

Down Something Take Making Hear Question Dictation Trying

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. Alice Oswald

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. Alice Oswald

Myself Great World Try Path Down Flower Out Point Point Of View Feel Look Force Because Exercise Coming Just Where Different Them View Hard Fascinating Different World Humans

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