The Book Depository 52 Ways Of Looking At A Poem by Ruth Padel
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Price: £10.99
Brand: The Book Depository
Description: 52 Ways Of Looking At A Poem : Paperback : Vintage Publishing : 9780099429159 : 0099429152 : 05 Feb 2004 : 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. The Book Depository 52 Ways Of Looking At A Poem by Ruth Padel - shop the best deal online on thebookbug.co.uk
Category: Books
Merchant: The Book Depository
Product ID: 9780099429159
MPN: 0099429152
GTIN: 9780099429159
Author: J. Flintoff
Rating: 5
Review: I first found this book in somebody else's house. It was an Airbnb. He had a lot of poetry, as I do. I dived in. And it was startling. I thought I was quite up on poetry, but this showed me several gaps. I was particularly challenged - and delighted - by the introduction, which is almost a manifesto for poetry. It makes a case for poetry's importance, but never loses sight of the sheer thrill of good poetry. The entertainment value. What most startled me was the sheer abundance of poets writing in English today. And the range of their interests and techniques. I went home and bought my own copy. If you look at the picture you can see that it's quite knackered from being well read (and dropped in the bath - oops). I have subsequently bought books of poetry by many of the individual poets in this book. I have been enormously influenced by them, and by Padel's introduction. All anthologies quickly turn into fossils. I'm writing this review 18 years after the book first came out. I'm sure the selection might be different today. And the people quoted on the back of the book would be different too. But I'm sure the Glasgow Herald would still write, correctly: "A gift for any student or poetry virgin who wonders what all the excitement is about."
Author: Mrs P
Rating: 2
Review: Ruth has some good insights in one or two poems, but I felt from the very start that her insights were likely to be one-dimensional, as the poems were divided up into 50% men and 50% women rather than being selected on merit alone, as they should have been. Why not also divide the poems into certain percentage Christian and Muslim, or divide them up into ethnic divisions too? Because it would be equally silly. Too many poems are seen solely in terms of gender politics resulting in Ruth completely missing the point of many of the poems, seeing meanings in the poem that aren't even there. Some of her comments have sexist undertones against men. Because of this, the reader is well advised to use their own judgement for many of the poems contained in this book, using Ruth's analysis merely as a guide at best and taken with a pinch of salt at worst due to her heavily gender PC tainted judgement. The other criticism is that she uses terms without any explanation which few casual readers are likely to know, and this further makes her writing confusing. I enjoyed most of the poems in the book, and these account for most of the book's merit.
