This is Alice Oswald's first book of poems. More confident and achieved than many first collections, it shows her writing in an already distinct voice. The poems are intensely musical: she recites them from memory. Influenced by the rhythms of Hopkins, they speak passionately of nature and love. They have a religious sense of mystery, and try to express the intangible in marvellously vivid language. A long poem, `The Wise Men of Gotham', which makes up the second part of the book, is, by contrast, a version of the folk-legend about the three men who went to sea in a boat in an attempt to catch the moon in a net. This book is intended for poetry readers.
- ISBN10 0192825135
- ISBN13 9780192825131
- Publish Date 21 March 1996
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 5 November 1999
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Oxford University Press
- Imprint Oxford Paperbacks
- Format Paperback (UK Trade)
- Pages 58
- Language English