The Poem and the Journey: And Sixty Poems to Read Along the Way

by Ruth Padel

Ruth Padel is an award-winning poet who has also become renowned as an energetic, generous and thought-provoking guide to reading poetry. Her "52 Ways of Looking at a Poem", with its lively overview of contemporary writing and eye-opening readings of individual poems, is indispensable for anyone who writes poetry, teaches it, or simply wants to enjoy it. In her new book, she uses sixty poems by some of our finest poets to look at the idea of the journey, through literature and through life. As Padel makes clear in her fascinating introduction, today's debates about how accessible a poem should be are poetry's older tradition. To rhyme or not to rhyme? The Elizabethans fought over that one, while the Greeks couldn't agree about whether poetry should be dumbed down or remain the preserve of the elite. Combining her training as a Classicist with her insights as a poet, Padel highlights the ways in which the best poets now find a balance between rhymed formal verse and modernism's freer styles, using a traditional, formal craft to convey genuinely felt, up-to-the-minute experience. In an increasingly unstable world, she argues, we need poetry more than ever to help us to see afresh and understand the journeys of our lives.

Genres: Poetry

Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Ruth is an English poet and writer. She has published poetry collections, novels, and books of non-fiction, including several on reading poetry. She has presented Radio 4′s Poetry Workshop, visiting poetry groups across the UK to discuss their poems.

Her awards include First Prize in the UK National Poetry Competition, a Cholmondeley Award from The Society of Authors, an Arts Council of England Writers’ Award and a British Council Darwin Now Research Award for her novel Where the Serpent Lives.

Ruth lives in London and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Member of the Bombay Natural History Society, an Ambassador for New Networks for Nature, a Patron of 21st-Century Tiger and a Council Member of the Zoological Society of London.

Reviews

[Jan-Maat]

The conceit of this volume is that Ruth Padel, poet and descendant of Charles Darwin has chosen sixty 20th century English poems and written a commentary on each one which is printed on the facing page. At one time I read this regularly while eating breakfast. I would read a poem, then the commentary, chew and mull things over for a while then re-read the poem. Muesli, even eaten with yoghurt, is the human equivalent of chewing the cud. The food determined that the breakfast reading be ruminative.

The commentaries give views and ideas on what the poem is about and that helped me to read the verses differently. For me this was extremely useful,since I've always found poetry difficult. In theory it's efficient word usage would be a plus, but in practice being a prosaic person prose is more my natural idiom. So the commentary worked because it forced me to stop and consider the possibilities of meaning rather than reading on.

The selected poems are all fairly short - though some like the Geoffrey Hill poem are extracted from longer cycles - and they are all fairly modern, the oldest I think from R. S. Thomas. All are from the English speaking world. I don't think that is a terrible choice, it at least avoided the controversies of translation.

The joy of a collection like this, even though they are arranged in a couple of broad themes within this notion of a journey through life, is that you can flick backwards and forwards and read a poem or not depending on whether a few words catch at something more than your eye. Here I also read, among others Louise Gluck vita nova.

Now instead I listen to the radio news while eating my bread and gargling my coffee...

[Farahin · Rating 5 out of 5]

The truth is I always felt like I needed a guide to read poetry, as I am aware of how shallow my approach can be. I find it difficult to resist seeing how the poetry fits into my own narrative when there’s so much more background, context and patterns to unpack and read between the lines. Ruth Padel’s anthology of poems and their journey definitely helped train my reading muscles, and I will revisit the poems with a more learned eye.

[Mo · Rating 3 out of 5]

read for class. enjoyed most of the poems

[Kay · Rating 5 out of 5]

i loved this book. i always knew that by not reading poetry my reading was being limited. my profs in uni didn't do much to install a love of poetry though. this book makes poetry accessible. there is a short intro section, discussing modern poetry, how to approach it. then, sixty poems, each followed by a discussion, a way of looking at the poem. they are mostly british poets, though some americans, and of course, milosz. highly recommended. i will buy her other book, 52 ways to look at a poem.

[Peter B Waddell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of every five or six books that I read two will be poetry. It’s been a trend for years yet this book has shown me how much more there is to enjoy and gain from poems. Thank you for adding another carriageway to the motorway and a leafy lane in parallel.

[holly-mae · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ruth Padel was my personal and poetry tutor at university. She helped to make the world of poetry so much more accessible and welcoming. I cannot thank her enough for her insight

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Raytown · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful selection of poems & Padel’s analysis and commentaries are well worth the time.

[Ciaran · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fabulous poems... however... though Padels insights are really very fascinating, I do feel that at times they can detract from one's enjoyment of the poem in question, though in time one grows to understand and appreciate the poem more for them.

[D.]

The Poem and the Journey: And Sixty Poems to Read Along the Way by Ruth Padel (2007)

[Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book to savour, micro chapter by micro chapter. I hope to be reading this for the rest of the year.

[Maria Santos · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a brilliant approach to the craft of writing poetry.