The National Botanic Garden of Wales(Photo: Second prize in the National Botanic Garden of Wales Competition)
I am very grateful to my friend, Mary (whose photographs of a redwing appear in my previous post) for alerting me to this morning's edition of Desert Island Discs on BBC Radio 4. Kirsty Young was interviewing prize-winning poet and recent Chair of the Poetry Society (2004-2006), Ruth Padel. Padel is the great great granddaughter of Darwin, and it was terrific to hear her account of an expedition to watch tigers. I was particularly pleased to learn that her chosen Desert Island book would be Homer's Iliad: I mentioned the version by Pope in a blog entry two days ago.
I notice that Ruth Padel is judging the Mslexia Women's Poetry Competition. The closing date is 24 April 2009.
Padel's new book, Darwin: A Life in Poems (Chatto & Windus) is due out on 12 February 2009. Books of poetry on scientific subjects seem to be in vogue. Last July I enjoyed a fascinating exhibition in the National Botanic Garden of Wales, which accompanied the new book by Anne Cluysenaar, Batu-Angas: Envisioning Nature with Alfred Russel Wallace (Seren).
3 comments:
I'm sorry i missed that, Padel is one of my favourite poets. Not only because of her environmental commitment and passionate poetry but also because she has real stage presence which is quite rare among literary poets these days.
Must try and catch it on playback. Thanks for the notifcation.
Padel's 'Tigers in Red Weather' is one of my all-time favourite books.
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