Emerald

A profoundly moving, complex, glittering elegy for her brilliant mother – Bel Mooney * Daily Mail *Emerald is a book of a wild and generous imagination from a writer at the peak of her powers. It offers up a rich excavation of the truths and mysteries found in grief – and should be of interest to any reader concerned with the limitations and beauty of the human condition. Padel has created a collection that is very much alive with uniquely restless, questioning intensity – Sarah Westcott * Poetry School *Emerald’s themes are broad as well as attentive to the intimate. Padel writes with an acute awareness that the mundane can gesture towards the profound – Carla-Rosa Manfredino * Times Literary Supplement *If Ruth Padel is one our national treasures – and she most certainly is – then her latest book of poems will surely rank as one of her greatest achievements to date… lyrical reflections on the human condition… an intensely beautiful portrait of final farewells… Padel has made great art out of her ingenious – and utterly satisfying – blending of lyric memoir, natural history, and travel writing, defying the limitations poets all too often place on themselves… Everyone should read Emerald, it’s as valuable as the title implies – André Naffis-Sahely * Ambit *Padel capture(s) small details with a lightness and freshness which has genuine staying power. Her skill at selecting the telling visual moment implies how a good parent may extend and deepen their child’s understanding of the world. It also enacts its own process of hidden things becoming visible, part of the labour of emerald mining and cutting that Padel explores to illustrate her passage into healing – Alice Hiller * The Poetry Review *Ruth Padel’s story, of a daughter’s love for her mother, allows her to reach for a movingly selfless language of human relations. She brings back never-before-seen jewels from those places where the mind goes to take refuge from grief – Hugo Williams

Ruth Padel is a prize-winning poet and author of thirteen acclaimed poetry collections and prose works including much-loved books on reading contemporary poetry, a travel-memoir on wild tiger conservation, and a study of the influence of Greek myth on rock music. Awards include a British Council Darwin Now Award, a Travel Bursary and Cholmondley Award from The Society of Authors, and First Prize in the National Poetry Competition. She is Professor of Poetry at King’s College London and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

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