In the final instalment of our landscape and literature series, Alice Oswald explores two major themes with Madeleine Bunting as they walk along the river Dart. Firstly, they discuss the challenges of capturing a constantly shifting landscape - exemplified by the flowing river - in words, and Oswald reads several poems set on the Dart and taken from different collections - A Sleepwalk on the Severn, Woods etc and Dart - to demonstrate.
Secondly, Oswald explores the challenges of writing about a landscape that has been linguistically domesticated over many centuries. "I'm continually smashing down the nostalgia in my head," she says, "and I am trying to enquire of the landscape itself what it feels about itself rather than bringing in advertising skills. There's a whole range of words that people use about landscape. Pastoral? Idyll? I can't stand them."
Field recordings come from John Dreever's CD Sounding Dartmoor.
