Dart

Summary

This book-length poem traces the River Dart from its source on Dartmoor to the sea, weaving together the voices of the people who live and work along its banks—fishermen, swimmers, industrial workers, mythological figures—into a flowing polyphonic whole. Oswald spent years recording and listening to the communities of the river before composing the poem, and the resulting work feels both documentary and visionary, a biography of a place written from the inside. It marked a bold expansion of what contemporary poetry could do with landscape and oral history.