[Tim Love]

It's rare to have new poetry in mainstream newspapers, and rarer still for someone to take a "modern poem" and try to convince the public of its worth.
Ruth Padel had a regular column in a UK Sunday newspaper where she took a recent poem and wrote about it. Her selection from her columns is out now ("52 Way of Looking at a Poem or How Reading Modern Poetry can Change your Life", Chatto and Windus 2002). Extracts about Ciaran Carson, Geoffrey Hill, Andrew Motion, Eavann Boland are on her website - http://www.ruthpadel.com/ - you might be able to go directly to http://www.rpadel.dircon.co.uk/rp_co...sundaypoem.htm

[Fantasia]

Wow, Tim! Thanks for this wonderful resource. I spent my lunch hour with it and probably will for serveral days before I print to save. Both sites look interesting! I'll be back after I've read and digested. Thanks again!

The very best to you, Tim ~

Elizabeth

Am popping this up as I have just succeeded in getting the Padel book into my local library. (They twice rejected my efforts to introduce the collected works of the veteran Scots Queen's gold medal winner Edwin Morgan).

Erastopherians who are already fairly well acquainted with contemporary poetry might well find some of the analyses of sound patterns etc labour the obvious. However, it offers an intelligent but readable intro to an eclectic mix of poems - most, but not all, by British and Irish authors -including a few in traditional metrical forms. A glossary is included.

I'd say the book is likely to sell well to UK 'A'level students and undergraduates and IMO it would be a useful addition to college and university libraries in other parts of the world - especially those which teach courses on contemporary British poetry. Margaret.

[Tim Love]

I'd second Campoem's comments - many writers (especially those who don't read/understand 'modern' poetry) will find the book useful. I have doubts about some of the sonic analysis though - see - http://www2.eng.cam.ac.uk/~tpl/lit/reviews.html#Padel2 for details.