Ruth Padel’s ten collections include Darwin: A Life in Poems (Knopf 2009), shortlisted for UK’s Costa Book Award, on her great-great grandfather Charles Darwin; The Mara Crossing (Random House UK); On Migration: Dangerous Journeys and the Living World (Counterpoint Press 2014); Learning to Make an Oud in Nazareth, shortlisted for 2014 T. S. Eliot Prize. Her prose work includes Tigers in Red Weather: A Quest for the Last Wild Tigers (Walker Books 2005); awards include British Council’s Darwin Now Fellowship for her novel Where the Serpent Lives, and first prize in UK’s National Poetry Competition. She is Professor of Poetry, King’s College London, and Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. www.ruthpadel.com
Poetry
Summer 1994
Birdlime
from William Turner’s Herbal, 1551 The thrush shits mischief shitting mistle berries well prepared in her body. Berries fallen from the tree prepare the ground. More berries come. Of these […]
Poetry
Summer 1994
Britain’s First Banana
1 From Bermuda, green, unripe. I hanged it in my shop. It ripened First of May. The pulp, or meat, soft. Extreme tender. It did eat like a musk-melon, somewhat. […]
Poetry
Summer 1994
Movement in Copper
Ingots from Crete. Clayworking tools, ox-hide-shaped, unearthed in Sardinia. This was her evidence, plus Norman ivories, a Bronze Age trade in walruses, tusks from prehistoric Asiatic elephants. The soul, if […]
Poetry
Autumn 1987
Deus Absconditus
On my bed I hold my two-month daughter shadowy in my elbow; her rough gold babygro from Mothercare warm as a mask. She has just discovered her feet and learnt to rub her eyes when […]
Poetry
Autumn 1987
Shards
Why does the private matter?Oleandersice-cream coloursruff the smart new roads. We are our journey,the revelatory descent,language from the well. Deciphermenthas broken in our mouths. Dun goats. A friezeof blue and […]
Jan/Feb 2018
The Emerald Tablet; Set in Gold
The Emerald Tablet for Alberto Manguel and Craig Stephenson This is to do with lostness with believing that the truth is buried in some special place difficult to find and […]