Download or read book Falling Awake Poems written by Alice Oswald and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2016-08-22 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Costa Poetry Award • Shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Award and the Forward Prize “These lyrics…illustrate poetry’s unique ability to shock readers into a renewed awareness of the world.” —Washington Post Falling Awake, winner of the Costa Award for Poetry, “give[s] us the sensation of living alongside the natural world, of being a spectator to the changes that mark our mortality” (Dan Chiasson, The New Yorker). Falling Awake expands on the imagery of fallen soldiers from Homer’s Iliad portrayed in her previous volume, Memorial—defining life as a slowly falling weight, where beings fight against their inevitable end. Oswald reimagines classical figures such as Orpheus and Tithonus alive in an English landscape together with shadows, flies, villagers, dew, crickets—all characterized in tension between the weight of death and their own willpower. FROM “VERTIGO” let me shuffle forward and tell you the two minute life of rain starting right now lips open and lidless cold all-seeing gaze

Download or read book Nobody A Hymn to the Sea written by Alice Oswald and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2020-07-21 with total page 88 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collage of water stories from the Odyssey, reconstructed as a mesmeric and hallucinatory book-length poem by acclaimed poet Alice Oswald. In Memorial, her unforgettable transformation of the Iliad, Alice Oswald breathed new life into myth. In Nobody, she returns to Homer, this time fixing her gaze on a minor character in the Odyssey—a poet abandoned on a stony island—and the sea that surrounds him. Familiar voices drift in and out of the poem; though there are no proper names, we recognize Helios, Icarus, Alcyone, Philoctetes, Calypso, Clytemnestra, Orpheus, Poseidon, Hermes, and the presiding spirit of Proteus, the shape-shifting sea-god. As with all of Oswald’s work, this is poetry that is made for the human voice, but here the language takes on the qualities of another element: dense, muscular, and liquid. Reading Nobody is like watching the ocean; we slip our earthly moorings and follow the circling shoal of sea voices into a mesh of sound and light and water—fluid, abstract, and moving with the wash of waves.

Download or read book The Planthunter written by Georgina Reid and published by Timber Press. This book was released on 2019-04-30 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An exciting and refreshing call to arms, The Planthunter is a new generation of gardening book for a new generation of gardener that encourages readers to fall in love with the natural world by falling in love with plants.

Download or read book Dart written by Alice Oswald and published by Faber & Faber. This book was released on 2010-06-17 with total page 73 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past three years Alice Oswald has been recording conversations with people who live and work on the River Dart in Devon. Using these records and voices as a sort of poetic census, she creates a narrative of the river, tracking its life from source to sea. The voices are wonderfully varied and idiomatic - they include a poacher, a ferryman, a sewage worker and milk worker, a forester, swimmers and canoeists - and are interlinked with historic and mythic voices: drowned voices, dreaming voices and marginal notes which act as markers along the way.

Download or read book Weeds and Wild Flowers written by Alice Oswald and published by Faber & Faber. This book was released on 2011-04-21 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Weeds and Wild Flowers is a magical meeting of the poems of Alice Oswald and the etchings of Jessica Greenman. Within its pages everyday flora take on an extraordinary life, jostling tragically at times, at times comically, for a foothold in a busying world. Stunningly visualised and skilfully animated, this imaginative collaboration beckons us toward a landscape of botanical characters, and invites us to see ourselves among them.

Download or read book A Sleepwalk on the Severn written by Alice Oswald and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2018-11-13 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book The Thing in the Gap Stone Stile written by Alice Oswald and published by Faber & Faber. This book was released on 2010-12-09 with total page 67 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: POETRY BOOK SOCIETY CHOICE The Thing in the Gap-Stone Stile, Alice Oswald's first collection of poems, announced the arrival of a distinctive new voice. Shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize, the book introduced readers to her meditative, intensely musical style, and her breath-taking gift for visionary writing. 'The poetry of Alice Oswald arrives like a zephyr . . . a fresh and exciting first collection.' Kathleen Jamie, Times Literary Supplement 'an inspired debut of lightly-worn wisdom and verbal panache.' John Fuller 'Alice Oswald throws the windows of the imagination open; she places a fingertip on the pulse of tradition, and proves it is still very much alive.' The Times

Download or read book Torn Awake written by Forrest Gander and published by New Directions Publishing. This book was released on 2001 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new collection by one of America's most respected young experimental poets.

Download or read book On Poetry written by Glyn Maxwell and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2016-11-21 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “This is a book for anyone,” Glyn Maxwell declares of On Poetry. A guide to the writing of poetry and a defense of the art, it will be especially prized by writers and readers who wish to understand why and how poetic technique matters. When Maxwell states, “With rhyme what matters is the distance between rhymes” or “the line-break is punctuation,” he compresses into simple, memorable phrases a great deal of practical wisdom. In seven chapters whose weird, gnomic titles announce the singularity of the book—“White,” “Black,” “Form,” “Pulse,” “Chime,” “Space,” and “Time”—the poet explores his belief that the greatest verse arises from a harmony of mind and body, and that poetic forms originate in human necessities: breath, heartbeat, footstep, posture. “The sound of form in poetry descended from song, molded by breath, is the sound of that creature yearning to leave a mark. The meter says tick-tock. The rhyme says remember. The whiteness says alone,” Maxwell writes. To illustrate his argument, he draws upon personal touchstones such as Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost. An experienced teacher, Maxwell also takes us inside the world of the creative writing class, where we learn from the experiences of four aspiring poets. “You master form you master time,” Maxwell says. In this guide to the most ancient and sublime of the realms of literature, Maxwell shares his mastery with us.

Download or read book Falling Awake written by Jayne Ann Krentz and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2011-12-01 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Isabel Wright spends her days at the Belvedere Centre for Sleep Research analyzing the dreams of others. It's satisfying, lucrative work, but it can be emotionally draining at times. Especially when one of her anonymous subjects, known only as Client Number Two, captures her imagination through his compelling dream narratives. Client Number Two's real name is Ellis Cutler. A loner who learned long ago not to let anyone get too close, he works for a highly classified government agency with an interest in the potential value of lucid dreaming. And he has just been ordered by his boss to make contact with Isabel, who's been fired after the sudden death of her boss, Dr. Belvedere. When they meet in the flesh, the dream becomes real enough to touch. And a waking nightmare begins. For a suspicious hit-and-run leads them into a perilous web of passion, betrayal and murder, and forces them to walk the razor-thin line between dreams and reality

Download or read book Crossing the Unknown Sea written by David Whyte and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2002-04-02 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Crossing the Unknown Sea is about reuniting the imagination with our day to day lives. It shows how poetry and practicality, far from being mutually exclusive, reinforce each other to give every aspect of our lives meaning and direction. For anyone who wants to deepen their connection to their life’s work—or find out what their life’s work is—this book can help navigate the way. Whyte encourages readers to take risks at work that will enhance their personal growth, and shows how burnout can actually be beneficial and used to renew professional interest. He asserts that too many people blindly trudge through a mediocre work life because so many “busy” tasks prevent significant reflection and analysis of job satisfaction. People often turn to spiritual practice or religion to nurture their souls, but overlook how work can actually be our greatest opportunity for discovery and growth. Crossing the Unknown Sea combines poetry, gifted storytelling and Whyte’s personal experience to reveal work’s potential to fulfill us and bring us closer to ultimate freedom and happiness.

Download or read book Falling Awake written by Gary Margolis and published by . This book was released on 1986 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Sorry for Your Troubles written by Pádraig Ó Tuama and published by Hymns Ancient and Modern Ltd. This book was released on 2013-07-26 with total page 94 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most engaging voices contemporary spirituality in is that of the Irish poet, Pádraig O'Tuama. This second poetry collection arises out of a decade of his hearing stories of people who have lived through personal and political conflict in Northern Ireland, the Middle East and other places of conflict. These poems tell stories of individuals who have lived through conflict: their loves and losses, their hope and generosity. One poem, 'Shaking hands' was written when Pádraig witnessed the historic handshake between Queen Elizabeth II and Martin McGuinness, who has since used the poem publicly. The phrase 'Sorry for your troubles' is used all over Ireland. It comes directly from an Irish phrase, yet Irish has no word for 'bereavement' - the word used is 'troiblóid'. So the phrase would be better translated 'Sorry for your bereavements'. With this in mind, this new book speaks evocatively about a time when thousands of people lost their lives and many thousands more lived through the searing pain of grief.

Download or read book Memorial A Version of Homer s Iliad written by Alice Oswald and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2012-09-10 with total page 86 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The most remarkable and affecting book of poetry I encountered this year.”—James Wood, The New Yorker In this daring new work, the poet Alice Oswald strips away the narrative of the Iliad—the anger of Achilles, the story of Helen—in favor of attending to its atmospheres: the extended similes that bring so much of the natural order into the poem and the corresponding litany of the war-dead, most of whom are little more than names but each of whom lives and dies unforgettably and unforgotten in the copious retrospect of Homer’s glance. The resulting poem is a war memorial and a profoundly responsive work that gives new voice to Homer’s level-voiced version of the world. Through a mix of narrative and musical repetition, the sequence becomes a meditation on the loss of human life.

Download or read book Here All Night written by Jill McDonough and published by Alice James Books. This book was released on 2019-10-17 with total page 67 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jill McDonough’s latest collection is fiercely unapologetic, transforming mundane moments into witty and provocative insights that closely examine the flaws in our quick-moving society. Using dark humor, the poems address the impermanence of life and how we should always find reasons to re-evaluate ourselves as empathetic beings over our selfish tendencies. ”Here’s Jill McDonough, Here All Night, belting out an endearing song of herself that is, as Whitman’s is, tuned in to some thrumming undercurrent of joy in all the mess that is America. The poems’ catalogue of the unwieldy stuff of domestic life ultimately insists that things are pretty good—love endures, friends come through, there’s plenty of gin. Unabashed and boisterous, McDonough’s voice also coos with gratitude and aching tenderness. A vital book in multiple senses: read it and feel more alive.” —Maggie Dietz

Download or read book Gigantic Cinema written by Alice Oswald and published by Jonathan Cape. This book was released on 2020-10-29 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'It is in very truth a sunny, misty, cloudy, dazzling, howling, omniform Day...' - Samuel Taylor Coleridge to William Sotheby, 27 September 1802 This anthology of poems and prose ranges from literary weather - Homer's winds, Ovid's flood - to scientific reportage, whether Pliny on the eruption of Vesuvius or Victorian theories of the death of the sun. It includes imaginary as well as actual responses to what is transitory, and reactions both formal and fleeting - weather rhymes, journals and jottings, diaries and letters - to the drama unfolding above our heads. The entries narrate the weather of a single capricious day, from dawn, through rain, volcanic ash, nuclear dust, snow, light, fog, noon, eclipse, hurricane, flood, dusk, night and back to dawn again. Rather than drawing attention to authors and titles, entries appear bareheaded, exposed to each other's elements, as a medley of voices. Rather than adding to our image of nature as a suffering solid, the anthology attends to patterns, events and forces: seasonal and endless, invisible, ephemeral, sudden, catastrophic. And by assembling a chorus of responses (ancient and modern, East and West) to air's manifold appearances, Gigantic Cinema offers a new perspective on what is the oldest conversation of all.

Download or read book Falling Awake written by Jon Kabat-Zinn and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2018-08-07 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Think you have no time for mindfulness? Think again. "Thoughtful and provocative.... The relevance of this work is unquestionable, as it leaves us inspired and optimistic that true healing really is possible" (Sharon Salzberg). For four decades, Jon Kabat-Zinn has been teaching the tangible benefits of meditation in the mainstream. Today millions of people have taken up a formal mindfulness meditation practice as part of their everyday lives. But how do you actually go about meditating? What does a formal meditation practice look like? And how can we overcome some of the common obstacles to incorporating meditation into daily life in an age of perpetual self-distraction? Falling Awake directly answers these urgent and timely questions. Originally published in 2005 as part of a larger book titled Coming to Our Senses, it has been updated with a new foreword by the author and is even more relevant today. Science shows that the tangible benefits of a mindfulness meditation practice are impossible to ignore. Kabat-Zinn explains how to incorporate them into our hectic, modern lives. Read on for a master class from one of the pioneers of the worldwide mindfulness movement.