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  • Published: 15 January 2008
  • ISBN: 9780099492948
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 384
  • RRP: $39.99

The Poem and the Journey

60 Poems for the Journey of Life



A follow up to the successful 52 Ways of Looking at a Poem, this new anthology gives you sixty wise and wonderful poems about life and suggests ways of reading them

Prize-winning poet Ruth Padel is renowned as a guide to understanding today's poetry. Her much-loved 52 Ways of Looking at a Poem introduced the contemporary poetry scene and discussed individual poems. Her new book, invaluable for all who want to write as well as read poems, reveals the journey of thought, language and music within sixty more poems and also shows how poems fortify us on the journey of our lives, in a collection of essays written in elegant, accessible prose.

  • Published: 15 January 2008
  • ISBN: 9780099492948
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 384
  • RRP: $39.99

About the author

Ruth Padel

Ruth Padel is a prize-winning poet, author of twelve acclaimed poetry collections and prose works including much-loved books on reading contemporary poetry, a travel-memoir on wild tiger conservation, and a study of the influence of Greek myth on rock music. Awards include a British Council Darwin Now Award, a Travel Bursary and Cholmondley Award from The Society of Authors, and First Prize in the National Poetry Competition. She is Professor of Poetry at King’s College London and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

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Praise for The Poem and the Journey

It's a generous, likable, diligent and smart piece of work

Andrew Motion, Guardian

Ruth Padel is Virgil in the 'Inferno' of poetry. She guides the reader gently and deftly on the journey... This is much more than a book about poetry, this is a handbook for living!

Fiona Shaw

As a writer you would probably choose Ruth Padel as your ideal reader. Her eye misses very little of the nudging and winking that goes on in a poem, and she seems able to tune into the silent music of text on the page...she finds more than most to engage with and enjoy

Simon Armitage

This vivid and illuminating book opens many pathways for the reader of contemporary poetry, bringing to bear not only current thinking but the whole world of the past, particularly the past of Greek experience

Gillian Beer

Brilliant... Padel draws on a huge range of references to make a powerful case for poetry as a living art form

Independent

An enlivening, illuminating book, lucid, accessible and probing

The Times

The ideal guide for the apprehensive reader of contemporary poetry... Her beguilingly informal style entertains and informs along the way. It is one of the book's great strengths that she is never lofty, nor condescending, nor a show off

Irish Times