Product Description

Modern poetry is often represented as difficult or remote from most people's experience. This is a passionate attempt to introduce and examine all aspects of contemporary poetry and make it a familiar part of our lives.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #29209 in Books
• Published on: 2004-02-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Review
'Her introduction will come to be seen as the summary of the age. I haven't seen any description of where and who we are that's as clear, balanced and inspiring.' Jo Shapcott 'Many of us who like poetry but are ignorant about how a good poem is put together have learned to read unfamiliar poetry with greater understanding as a result of this weekly analysis. An Independent on Sunday reader

Back in 1999, Ruth Padel, poet and writer, began a weekly poetry column in The Independent on Sunday. This was an experiment to introduce modern poetry to the many people who felt sidelined by it, believing it 'difficult' or 'elitist'. What began as a six-week trial ran for two and a half years, during which time Padel was deluged with letters, phone calls and e-mails from readers who declared she had completely changed their response to modern verse. This is a selection of 52 poems and the related articles. Padel suggests ways of interpreting each poem, from a syntactical point of view and also from close analysis of the text. She provides some details of each poet's background, with reference to their other work and explains how the poem under discussion fits into the canon. Yet this outstanding book is far from just being a study guide. Padel's intention is to make the glorious diversity of modern poetry accessible to all, whatever their intellectual background. In the challenging essay that prefaces the poems she demystifies poetic style and structure in a lucid explanation of metre, rhyme and rhythm. She revels in unveiling the hidden rhyme patterns in the poems she discusses, and her boundless enthusiasm is infectious. She never attempts to claim her personal reading of a given poem is to be taken as gospel - in fact, alternative viewpoints from her readers fill her with delight. The poems have all been published in Britain, although the poets themselves come from all over the world. There are as many women as men represented, influential poets whose work has on occasion been dismissed as 'formless' and 'whimsical'. Ruth Padel has no truck with such criticism, and points out how women poets are often misunderstood and under-represented, simply because their poems are read and interpreted by men. There are poems about the enormous issues of death, sex and love, families and war. But there are also poems about feeling fat on the beach, a blind man making a cup of coffee, the loneliness of listening to the shipping forecast. For those of us who missed out on the chance to read her columns, Padel's collection will become a much-loved friend, to be returned to again and again for her wisdom, her perception and her unrestrained passion for poetry. (Kirkus UK)

An Independent on Sunday reader
‘Many of us... have learned to read unfamiliar poetry with greater understanding as a result of this weekly analysis.'

Times
"She chooses her poems with impeccable taste, an anthologist of the very best contemporary poetry"

Customer Reviews

fascinating and helpful to the common reader
Although I do buy some modern poetry much of the stuff that gets published seems to be written for a tiny clique, and few (other than Wendy Cope and Carol Anne Duffy) are as immediately accesible as Philip Larkin. The Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion, never gets a poem printed without a ton of derision from hacks, which doesn't help those who'd like to find out if anyone new is as good as the poets we read at school and university.

Ruth Padel's collection, taken from a weekly newspaper column in the Independent on Sunday is therefore a real thrill, whether you're a student trying to find out how to approach modern poetry or an interested but bewildered reader. She puts modern poetry into a literary and historical context, with a light, witty touch, and explores 52 poems line by line, with a bit about each poet as introduction. Her own metaphors in doing so are sometimes as good as anything in the poem - I loved her description of Peter Redgrove's "playful love poem" to The Visible Baby "offering its own bright images and spell-like repetitions like a coloured mobile."

Though not, I imagine, includsive of all good modern poets this is a terrific way in.

This is as good a place to start as any
After 35 years since reading poetry for A levels I found it hard to get back into reading poetry, and modern poetry in particular. What were the "rules", what were the boundaries, what the hell was going on?
I found that this books interesting introductory essay, helpful and soothing (I wasn't as far off the mark as I thought I was).

However it was Ms Padel's analysis of the poems along with a brief biography of each poet that I found most helpful and easily applicable to other poems.
Most importantly, I found myself as a male, reading female poets with enjoyment and interest instead of my usual defensive, faint bewilderment.

Highly recommended for the nervous and bewildered.

Poetic overview of modern poetry
In autumn, I start a creative writing course with the Open University. One of the assignments is to write an 80-line poem. I know you out there who dash off a daily Sonnet or Etheree ( yes I had never heard of it before either )wonder what all the fuss is about.

Well the fuss is that the last poetry I studied was back in 1977-8 when I started but didn't complete English A' Level ( I decided that living on a commune where naked women -some hippie idea of moon cycles- gardened was the better option... and dear reader it was!) And frankly apart from the last few weeks, I have not written poetry since the 60's which was for some Cadburys Chocolate writing competition which I won but then so did the entire class. Clever marketing rather then good writing one suspects.

This is a poem I put together after reading this book:

He came not wearing black but
dressed as lover's
would; finery to pleasure.

My drought watered as on
a first lover's glance
and kiss. Now my last.

He holds my hand while nurse
shakes me out of my
long sleep in the white night.

I'm so ready for our dance.

Yes I know but it takes time to learn- this is only my 4th poem ever!. Thanks to 52 Ways of Looking at a Poem by Ruth Padel, I now know that this 50-word poem is a free form (1) syllabic (2) verse with rhythm maintained by the use of enjambment (3) and an underlying 7-5-7 syllabic beat within an irregular 4 stanza form(4). And that it leans to metaphorical expression through the voice of an old woman. See what happens when you read Poetry books.

British readers may recognise Ruth Padel from her long since axed Independence on Sunday poetry section where she published a modern poet's poem and then explored a way of reading or understanding it. This book pulls together 52 of those articles and introduces the reader to the who and what of modern English Poetry.

I hadn't heard of one of the poets(no sniggering in the back please) so the book enabled me to read and catch a flavour of poetry today that... lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar.

Read this book and then say modern poetry is so elitist and obscure.

(1) meaning no set metre or end rhymes
(2) meaning you count the syllables rather then the stresses
(3) meaning the line or phrase carries over on the next
(4) meaning verses