Darwin
A Life in Poems
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Vintage Publishing
Published:6th May '10
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
An intimate and moving interpretation of the life and work of Charles Darwin, by the acclaimed poet and direct descendent of the famous scientist. Shortlisted for the 2009 Costa Poetry Award.
Includes poems that use multiple viewpoints - from Darwin himself, to his beloved wife Emma, and even, at one point, the orangutang at London Zoo - and illuminates the development of Darwin's thought, the drama of the discovery of evolution, and the fluctuating emotions of Darwin the husband, and the naturalist and the tender father.
In these extraordinary poems, using multiple viewpoints - from Darwin himself, to his beloved wife Emma, and even, at one point, the orangutang at London Zoo - Ruth Padel illuminates the development of Darwin's thought, the drama of the discovery of evolution, and the fluctuating emotions of Darwin the husband, the naturalist and the tender father, in a powerful tribute to her famous ancestor.
Shortlisted for the 2009 Costa Poetry Award.
Exquisite, precise and moving poems... Once I started reading I could not put it down until I had reached the end, and then I turned back for the pleasure of reading again -- Claire Tomalin
A fascinating, very rich book... With sympathy and grace, Padel moves deftly between between science, love and family; between the vast processes of evolution and a personal life -- Sean O'Brien
Daring and exciting, brilliant and subtle, stunning and deeply impressive... a lesson to biographers and poets alike -- Colm Toibin
Ambitious... shows her extraordinary talent * Observer *
Moments of Darwin's life captured with an economy and fluency that prosaic biographers might envy * Spectator *
Inspired...her poems are delicate, but with an unusual density... Padel's subtle account is worthy of a fine novelist * The Times *
It feels like a deft act of collaboration between the living and the dead, one melding easily with the other... she seems to have caught the quintessence of the man's character, as if in a butterfly net * The Economist *
This is not a mere collection, but a complete miniature biography of the great man... Immensely powerful... With her gleaming tropical imagery and a voice resonant with wondrous and tragic overtones,Padel has given us a renewed and intimate Darwin -- Richard Holmes * Guardian *
They [the poems] convey what a sensitive, wondering, reverent observer Darwin was of life-forms * The Oldie *
I love this collection and will happily re-read it several times.What Ruth Padel does so well is to marry her own sharply observed details with the beauty of Darwin's prose...It is a grand story told in poetry that never overlooks the small things. -- Lesley McDowell * Independent on Sunday *
ISBN: 9780099547051
Dimensions: 198mm x 129mm x 9mm
Weight: 117g
160 pages