52 Ways of Looking at a Poem: Or How Reading Modern Poetry Can Change Your Life - Softcover

Ruth Padel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0701173181 ISBN 13: 9780701173180

Publisher: London : Chatto & Windus, 2002

Synopsis

British poetry is in a wonderful state at present. Never have so many poets been saying so many interesting things in such lively, up-to-date ways. Yet many people feel shut out or know little about poetry and have no idea where to begin. In this groundbreaking book, Ruth Padel takes fifty-two of the poems she discussed in her newspaper column - a year's worth - and suggests ways of reading them. The poems are by a wide range of living poets, on experiences we all share - love, sex, death, nature, history, war - which show how reading a poem can enhance everyone's life as powerfully and as pleasurably as reading novels or watching a film.

About this title

About the Author:

Ruth Padel is a prize-winning poet, Fellow of both the Royal Society of Literature and Zoological Society of London, and first Resident Writer at Somerset House, London. Her poetry collections include Rembrandt Would Have Loved You, Voodoo Shop and The Soho Leopard, all shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize. She has also published two much-loved books on reading contemporary poetry, 52 Ways of Looking at a Poem and The Poem and the Journey, and a highly acclaimed nature book, Tigers in Red Weather, shortlisted in the US for the Kiriyama Prize.

Review:

"Ruth Padel combines two major gifts: she is both a distinguished poet and a quite exceptional reader of the poetry of others... The result is a book which opens doors, which bids us share with its author and the poems she has chosen a wealth of insight" -- George Steiner "She argues away the idea that contemporary poetry is "difficult": all it needs is a little work and the rewards are great" * Sunday Times * "A brilliant snapshot of contemporary poetry. Padel writes with incisive intelligence, particularly in her lively and provocative introduction on gender-related power in the poetry world and why poetry has "lost its audience" -- Christina Patterson, Director of the Poetry Society * Independent * "She chooses her poems with impeccable taste, an anthologist of the very best contemporary poetry" * The Times * "A great gift for any student or poetry virgin who wonders what all the excitement is about" * Glasgow Herald *

About this edition

• Publisher: London : Chatto & Windus
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0701173181
• ISBN 13: 9780701173180
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 288