Introduction
Alice Oswald (born 1966) is a British poet from Reading, Berkshire who won the T. S. Eliot Prize in 2002.
Career
Oswald read Classics at New College, Oxford. She then trained as a gardener and worked at such sites as Chelsea Physic Garden, Wisley and Clovelly Court Gardens. She currently lives on the Dartington Estate in Devon with her husband, the playwright Peter Oswald (also a trained classicist), and her three children. Alice Oswald is the sister of actor Will Keen and writer Laura Beatty.
In 1994, she was the recipient of an Eric Gregory Award. Her first collection of poetry, The Thing in the Gap-Stone Stile (1996), won a Forward Poetry Prize (Best First Collection) in 1996, and was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize in 1997.
Her second collection, Dart (2002), combined verse and prose, and tells the story of the River Dart in Devon from a variety of perspectives. Jeanette Winterson called it a " … moving, changing poem, as fast-flowing as the river and as deep … a celebration of difference … ". Dart won the T. S. Eliot Prize in 2002.
In 2004, Oswald was named as one of the Poetry Book Society's Next Generation poets. Her collection Woods etc., published in 2005, was shortlisted for the Forward Poetry Prize (Best Collection).
In 2009 she published both A sleepwalk on the Severn and Weeds and Wildflowers, which won the inaugural Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry, and was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize.
In October 2011, Oswald published her 6th collection, Memorial. Subtitled "An Excavation of the Iliad", Memorial is based on the Iliad attributed to Homer, but departs from the narrative form of the Iliad to focus on, and so commemorate, the individual named characters whose deaths are mentioned in that poem. Later in October 2011, Memorial was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize, but in December 2011, Oswald withdrew the book from the shortlist, citing concerns about the ethics of the prize's sponsors.
Oswald was a judge for the 2016 Griffin Poetry Prize.
Awards and recognition
- 1994: Eric Gregory Award
- 1996: Arts Foundation Award for Poetry
- 1996: Forward Poetry Prize for (Best First Collection), The Thing in the Gap-Stone Stile
- 1997: shortlisted for T. S. Eliot Prize, for The Thing in the Gap-Stone Stile
- 2002: T. S. Eliot Prize for Dart
- 2005: shortlisted for Forward Poetry Prize (Best Poetry Collection of the Year), for Woods etc.
- 2005: shortlisted for T. S. Eliot Prize for Woods etc.
- 2007: Forward Poetry Prize (Best Single Poem) for 'Dunt'
- 2009: Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry for Weeds and Wild Flowers
- 2011: shortlisted for T. S. Eliot Prize, for Memorial, subsequently withdrawn due to Oswald's ethical concerns.
- 2013: Warwick Prize for Writing, winner for Memorial
- 2013: Corneliu M. Popescu Prize for European Poetry, winner for Memorial
- 2016: Costa Award for Poetry for Falling Awake
- Liz Bury (25 September 2013). "Alice Oswald wins Warwick prize". The Guardian. Retrieved 7 December 2013.
- Tasja Dorkofikis (5 December 2013). "Poetry in translation – The Popescu Prize 2013". English PEN. Retrieved 7 December 2013.
- "Costa Book of the Year: Sebastian Barry celebrates second win". BBC News. 31 January 2017. Retrieved 1 February 2017.