Alice Oswald: Tithonus, Purcell Room

Alice Oswald is one of Britain’s greatest living poets and a master of the book-length long poem. Her magnum opus Dart captured the voices of the titular river, whilst the recent Memorial was a haunting excavation of The Iliad. Her new work Tithonus   – 46 minutes in the life of the dawn , premiered here as part of the London Festival of Literature , is set to be just as wondrous. 

Tithonus is the tale of a mortal man favoured by Eos, the goddess of the dawn. When she asked Zeus to make her lover immortal, she forgot to ask for him not to age. Tithonus grew ever older, until he was unable to move and was locked away, babbling ceaselessly. Oswald’s poem records his imprisonment. Written at sunrise each morning from spring to Midsummer, it lasts exactly 46 minutes, the length of dawn on Midsummer’s Day. Like Memorial, it is inspired by Homer’s manipulation of time, and like Dart it hinges on the cycles of nature. 

Oswald is a revelatory reader of her own poems, and this unique chance to see her recite a new work promises to be one of the literary events of the year.