Reading Groups: Alice Oswald's Nobody
This is the introduction and discussion thread for the reading group on Alice Oswald’s Nobody.
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I chose Alice Oswald’s Nobody for our November book because of its attention to myth, the environment, and voice. Nobody grew out of Oswald’s new translation of the Iliad. This is a book-length poem—a collage of water-stories, taken mostly from the Odyssey—the focus is on a minor character, abandoned on a stony island. It is not a translation, though, but a close inspection of the sea that surrounds him. There are several voices in the poem, but no proper names, although many gods and spirits appear such as Proteus, the sea-god. Other figures from Greek myths are also there: Helios, Icarus, Philoctetes, Calypso, Clytemnestra, Orpheus, Poseidon, Hermes.
Oswald was born in 1966, has written eight books of poetry and won many prizes for her work. She is the Oxford Professor of Poetry at Trinity College and lives in Bristol, England.
Nobody begins with a very minor episode in the Odyssey: An unnamed poet was left by Agamemnon in-charge of his wife to make sure that she wasn’t unfaithful. Once Agamemnon was away at war, Aegistheus started to court Clytemnestra. She wouldn’t give in because she said she knew that Agamemnon had left this poet to spy on her and he said, “Oh, don’t worry about that. I’ve taken him over and abandoned him on a stoney island so we can get on and have an affair.” What does the title Nobody mean in this context?
Oswald says: “The poem conveys a kind of eroded thinking. It’s as if the thoughts have had reality washing away at them; a sentence sets out then gets blown in another direction. Erosion is important to me in that I think poetry has a particular duty and relationship towards time. Poems are miniature human clots I think, they’re full of time keeping in the way that a piece of music is full of timekeeping.” What do you think about erosion in terms of thinking through poetry?
What is the difference between poetry that prioritizes the human meaning above other meanings in the physical world and poetry that doesn’t?
Both the Oswald book and the Mannheimer book have been works of liberation from the constraints of grammar, punctuation, form (though they have their own forms) and clarity that I had thought were hallmarks of good poetry (or which I think I needed to strive for, probably out of insecurity about my own voice). Mannheimer's dislocations and her omissions of detail coupled with the conversation style of her poems helped me to see that clarity and exposition are not necessary and being sparing of details and being inexact can be effective in creating a sense in the reader that they are brought into the story midway and are present there. Oswald moves into a strange place of both time and timelessness, with voices coming out of and above the deep, a sort of pre-conscious/post-conscious ominscience that just seems fascinating and primordial. Both induce a much deeper and seemingly more mystical or liminal sense that is both pleasurable in its own right and also freeing more generally. Poems that I feel emerging after reading these works seem to be both more powerful and more elusive. Maybe I'm wrong.... we are in a realm of uncertainty and confusion and trying to make sense and meaning.
I didn't get that same response in myself (so far) from reading the Mary Leader book --perhaps because her structures are powerful and seem to me imposed upon the work. This could be my own limitation in my own reading.
What are other folks in the group noticing in your own writing after reading these books? I am very curious.
I wrote two very hymnlike poems that must draw something from Oswald since we met. I will try to make these more finished and hope to post one here in the next week for comment/responses.
Thank you Sean for all of this.
--Diane
"What do you think about erosion in terms of thinking through poetry?
What is the difference between poetry that prioritizes the human meaning above other meanings in the physical world and poetry that doesn’t?"
Thank you so much Sean for introducing me, us (our reading group) to Oswald and this book Nobody. Your question about erosion made me think of one of her many riffs on what the sea is/does/looks like/means, p. 5 " . . .yet it will outlast everything/because it is deep it is a dead field fenceless/a thickness with many folds in it promiscuous and mingling/which in its patience always wears away the hard things" In your comments, I really like the quote by her about poetry being a kind of "eroded thinking." I wouldn't try to say what she means exactly, but it made me think about how daily routine, headlines, slogans, ads build up on us, on our thinking, like sedimentary rock, and a poem, poems, can wear away that. As for your question about "poetry that prioritizes human meaning," for some reason I didn't feel that Oswald's Nobody prioritizes the sea or shells or water or sea-crows so much as give them voices and eyes and character. But maybe we are talking about the same thing ,the way she gives the sea a voice (really many voices) in the poem, as opposed to all "I" voices that are in so many poems that I read and write.