Sidelong Glances - Professor of Poetry Lecture with Alice Oswald

Live Online Event: Sidelong Glances - oblique comments on the poetry of Marianne Moore
Alice Oswald is the current Professor of Poetry at the Faculty of English. She took up her post in September 2019.
Alice Oswald’s first two lectures as Professor of Poetry are available online: ‘The Art of Erosion’ and ‘An Interview with Water‘
Professor Ros Ballaster, Chair of the English Faculty Board at Oxford, said: ‘Poetry plays an important role in our universities and society. It is a place for reflection in language and about language.
‘The election of Alice Oswald sees the tenure of our first female Professor of Poetry. To adopt the words in her own poetry, it is the fulfilment of long balancing “the weight of hope against the light of patience”. Hers is a remarkable, resonant talent and we count ourselves privileged to host her for four years.

[@jamesarmstrong8729]

Tanks SO much to Torch and the other institutions for making this fascinating lecture available. And of course, to Alice Oswald for such insights to poetry and in particular, on Marianne Moore.

[@aspencrest]

Mt Rainier is South of Seattle. (for the record). Also, it is not extinct. (still active)

[@willchancellor6944]

"Donne, Herrick, Hopkins, Wyatt, Milton, Beckett, Ponge, Clare, Chaucer, Dante, David Jones, Hughes, Homer-that's my particular list..."

[@noneone.............]

Let's learn poetry 🌐🇬🇧♥️

[@johnmartin2813]

My one difficulty with Marianne Moore, apart from her otherwise very great excellence, is a tendency to a somewhat over-elaborate word-painting. Which is surely what poetry is *not* about. Minute descriptions of objects are not only a fussy superfluity but in fact an absolutely impenetrable hindrance to that sudden 'seeing' of the object which a single well-chosen epithet can induce. And which at its best can affect all the senses. And which is surely close to the essence of the greatest poetry, second only to memorable wisdom. Because it is so supremely miraculous.

[@philomel1000]

There are many different kinds of miracles. Not all are focused on objects. Have you read John Donne, Emily Dickinson, Christina Rossetti, Jorie Graham?

[@johnmartin2813]

​​​@@philomel1000: Whatever else a miracle is it is surely always characterised by its extreme uniqueness and unlikeliness and is therefore impervious to scientific analysis. Of course I have heard of John Donne and Emily Dickinson, and in fact studied them closely. Christina Rosetti I find a bit too fey for my admittedly somewhat puritanical tastes. The other one I've never even heard of.

[@johnmartin2813]

​@@philomel1000: I've just now read some of Jorie Graham's work. It's far too discursive and loose. Poetry should have a crystalline quality. As Ezra Pound pointed out 'Dichtung = condensare'.