Ruth is a British poet and writer, author of eight poetry collections, a wide range of non-fiction and a novel. She is Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Zoological Society of London, and presents Poetry Workshop, a BBC Radio 4 series on writing poems.
NEWS
Ruth’s new book The Mara Crossing has been nominated for the 2012 London Poetry Award http://bit.ly/zgewJ1.
Listen to Ruth reading a poem for NOWHERE ISLAND, http://nowhereisland.org/resident-thinkers/34/
Read a review of Darwin A Life in Poems in American Scientist http://www.americanscientist.org/bookshelf/pub/poetry-in-the-wild
THE MARA CROSSING is a hybrid, blending poems and prose, history and sicence to explore multiple aspects of migration.
“A prodigy, a book of wonders”, Independent
Listen to Ruth reading the final poem in The Mara Crossing, ‘Time to Fly’ which intertwines the motives for migration among birds, cells, people and animals – http://bit.ly/yvximW
Read Ruth on political aspects of migration in the book, http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/mar/21/ruth-padel-migration-open-weekend?newsfeed=true
READ themes from THE MARA CROSSING at http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/visions-of-new-life-how-migration-led-to-the-formation-of-human-society-6282679.html
LISTEN to themes arising from it at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00mn5lw, join in the Facebook conversation, http://tinyurl.com/ykx3nzw and follow the comments on Twitter @BBCTheForum.
READ A POEM FROM THE MARA CROSSING
This poem draws on the Greek diaspora before the Second World War – and the problem of a home you have to keep leaving in order to survive
The Two Flames
Let’s say you found each other like repeating flames
in an antique mirror, trailing the memory
of two Greek ports in foreign lands
where you were born, and two islands
you fled back to when the devil began to dance
in mad Evropi and you learned the island song
of eternal ritornelle: one hotgold summer
when you find yourself, then rage to get away,
darkwinter alcohol, high winds to cut you off,
a closed-in grey horizon and a harbour
where all your debts and fantasies are known.
While beyond the mountain one small bay
waits on: never not dreamed of, life-long
loved and left. The soul’s a wanderer and fugitive,
driven by decrees and laws of gods.
Recent Work
