Ruth Padel
Fusewire
Poems on British colonisation in Ireland interwoven with love poems which reverse its sexual clichés.
‘A book which breaks the mould. An Englishwoman in love with a figure in Irish public life: the poems meditate on the relationship between the two islands. Here, for the first time in poetry, Ireland is the powerful male figure for which England longs. This turning around of cliché and the strange, passionate tones are a far cry from the general coolness of contemporary English (and indeed Irish) poetry. The first poem in the book is a masterpiece. Colm Toibin, Best Books of the Year, Times Literary Supplement
With her trademark historical and linguistic energy, Padel explores the relation between two countries and the effect of history on personal lives. As the double meaning in ‘Your Place or Mine?’ makes clear, Britain is the woman, Ireland the high-profile man.
From reviews:
‘Padel is crafting a metaphorical language that revitalizes the eye and declares itself unmistakeably her own.’ Times Literary Supplement
‘A collection to cherish: her work combines subtlety and complexity with a vision rooted in the concrete, and a curiosity that is, behind its cool, playful surface, both passionate and uncompromising.’ Christina Patterson, Independent on Sunday
‘Stunning! Padel is a perfect poet.,’ Reader from NYC, Amazon.com
‘Fusewire picks up erotic and political themes of earlier volumes and startlingly confirms the impression of a voracious imagination which finds its natural expression in figurative language made up of the appetitive and animal… and torn between sensuality and moral seriousness. The best poems are playfully sardonic with true postmodernist aplomb… or concisely evocative.’ Poetry Review
‘She mixes the personal and the political to surprising and moving effect.’
Recommended Summer Reading, Independent
