Begin by reading a brief introduction to lyric poetry.
Alice Oswald is perhaps Britain’s finest living poet. Trained in Classics (i.e. the study of ancient Greek and Roman literature), she is also known for her sharp observations of the natural world and its interactions with human conscious experience.
The first half of Falling
Awake is a series of separate lyric poems. The second half, preceded by two
blank and black pages, is a single poem—an extended meditation on mortality
that unfolds over the period of a single sunrise. We’ll examine this second half of
the book on Wednesday and Thursday.
For today, choose one of the poems from the first half of the book and write a paragraph or two explaining what you like about it and why. Try if you can to comment on the ways in which particular images and/or sound effects (rhyme, repetition, rhythm, meter) enhance your understanding of the poem’s meaning(s).