Alice Oswald studied classics at Oxford and then trained as a gardener. She worked in gardens for seven years before publishing her first book of poems, THE THING IN THE GAP-STONE STILE, which won the Forward Prize in 1996. She was writer in residence at Dartington Hall from 1996-8 and there wrote her long poem DART, which won the T.S. Eliot prize in 2002. Other collections have won the inaugural Ted Hughes award (WEEDS AND WILDFLOWERS), the Hawthornden prize (A SLEEPWALK ON THE SEVERN) and the Warwick prize (MEMORIAL). In 2009 she won a Cholmondeley award for her contribution to poetry. She is married with three children and lives in Devon.
Her new collection, FALLING AWAKE, was published by Cape Poetry in July 2016, and was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection 2016, the T.S. Eliot Prize 2016, the Costa Poetry Award 2016, and the Griffin Poetry Prize 2017.