Is there somewhere in Oxford that makes you think of a poem? Or a poem that makes you think of somewhere in Oxford?
OPL is collecting the poems that people associate with local places (and the places that people associate with poems).
It could be something written specifically about this city, one by a poet with a local link, or one that conveys a strong sense of a particular place. We are looking to discover the Oxford beyond Matthew Arnold’s “dreaming spires,” to find the landmarks current residents feel connected to in their city. This could be a sonnet about Port Meadow, an ode to Cowley Road, a free-verse stream-of-consciousness poem recounting a bus-trip to Blackbird Leys… It could also be a poem which isn’t about Oxford specifically but recalls an individual’s relationship with a particular place: dropping a child off at school for the first time, a walk by the river. The aim is to uncover the way people connect with the geography of their city through poetry.
Share the poem with us by filling in the below form, tell us why you’ve chosen it, and we’ll add it to our map (and perhaps include it in our upcoming mapping and local-poetry projects).
