Alice Oswald

 Eg vart merksam på den engelske poeten Alice Oswald ( f.1966) i ein artikkel av litteratur professor Janne Stigen Drangsholt. Ho skriv om Langfredag og refererar til diktet «Field» av Alice Oswald. Det er eit dikt med konkrete bilete, ho står på eit jorde bak huset, det er midnatt, verda er omgjeve av eit vått mørkre. Påskenatt, det djupaste mørkre, sjelas midtvinter. Men mørkret opnar seg gradvis mot det som skal koma,etter natt alltid morgon, etter vinter alltid vår. Etter påskenatt kan verda fødast på ny.

Field
Easternight, the mind’s midwinter
 
I stood in the big field behind the house
at the centre of all visible darkness
 
a brick of earth,  block of sky,
there lay the world, wedged
between its premise and its conclusion
 
some star let go a small sound on a thread.
 
almost midnight – I could feel the earth’s
soaking darkness squeeze and fill its darkness,
everything spinning into the spasm of midnight
 
and for a moment, this high field unhorizoned
hung upon nothing, barking for its owner
 
burial, widowed, moonless, seeping
 
docks, grasses, small windflowers, weepholes, wires

Biography

Alice Oswald is one of the most important poets writing in Britain today, and also one of the most elusive. Her six collections combine the English traditions of nature poetry, history, myth, and lyric; moving genres and forms, she has written a book of poems about flowers, a reshaping of The Iliad, short lyrics, and a book-length poem about the people (present and past) and animals that make up the life of a river. Her work is characterised by a quiet, patient attention to voice, including use of dialect. She lives in Devon.