Learning to Make an Oud in Nazareth
Published on 3. July 2014
Book
Paperback/Softback
80 pages
978-0-7011-8816-0 (ISBN)
Description
'Making is our defence against the dark...'
Through images of conflict and craftsmanship, Ruth Padel's powerful new poems address the Middle East, tracing a quest for harmony in the midst of destruction. An oud, the central instrument of Middle Eastern music , is made and broken. An ancient synagogue survives attacks, a Palestinian boy in a West Bank refugee camp learns capoeira, and a guide shows us Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity during a siege. At the heart of the book are Christ's last words from the Cross.
Uniting this moving collection is the common ground shared by Judaism, Christianity and Islam: a vision of human life as pilgrimage and struggle but also as music and making. With care and empathy, Ruth Padel suggests how rifts in the Holy Land speak to conflict in our own hearts. 'We identify. Some chasm / through the centre must be in and of us all.'
Through images of conflict and craftsmanship, Ruth Padel's powerful new poems address the Middle East, tracing a quest for harmony in the midst of destruction. An oud, the central instrument of Middle Eastern music , is made and broken. An ancient synagogue survives attacks, a Palestinian boy in a West Bank refugee camp learns capoeira, and a guide shows us Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity during a siege. At the heart of the book are Christ's last words from the Cross.
Uniting this moving collection is the common ground shared by Judaism, Christianity and Islam: a vision of human life as pilgrimage and struggle but also as music and making. With care and empathy, Ruth Padel suggests how rifts in the Holy Land speak to conflict in our own hearts. 'We identify. Some chasm / through the centre must be in and of us all.'
Reviews / Votes
There are points where one feels Padel is a poetic Daniel Barenboim. It is inlaid poetry... as if Padel were embroidering a tapestry. Each poem turns out to be an instrument and Padel knows how to play. Her command of register is masterly... There is no doubting Padel's accomplishment, her poems stand tall partly because she tends to rise about the personal. -- Kate Kellaway * Observer * Padel is one of our most talented writers. She turns her multi-layered poetic attention to the Middle East, seeking peace and harmony through sensitive and moving poems that offer hope even as they reflect upon struggle. -- Bel Mooney * Daily Mail * Lyrical and sensual, albeit with a keen awareness that in war zones, music, love and poetry are sidelined even as they become more vital. Padel skilfully juxtaposes the modern world with the ancient. -- Suzi Feay * Independent on Sunday * Padel's great characteristic is her range. Making an Oud interweaves contemporary Middle Eastern politics, the history and culture of the Abrahamic religions, natural beauty and love poetry. Padel is not writing partisan polemic but attempting something much more difficult, a kind of cultural synthesis. * Independent * Superb collection... Sorrowful and elegiac...though it ends on a note not entirely without hope -- Lesley Mcdowell * Glasgow Sunday Herald * Her prolific and passionate creativity is proof that "making is our defence against the dark" -- Bel Mooney * Daily Mail * This is a book of dark, broken melodies, consciously beautiful, underpinned by pain and terror -- Peter Scupham * Literary Review * A poet of great eloquence and delicate skill, an exquisite image-maker who can work wonders with the great tradition of line and stanza. Her voice has an astonishing resonance. -- Colm Toibin With extraordinary breadth of erudition, a sensitivity to different cultural environments and powerful visual alertness, this collection has all the characteristics we have learned to expect from Ruth Padel. Readers will be struck by the mature command of these poems as well as their great range of subject and feeling. -- Dr. Rowan WilliamsMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Vintage Publishing
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (UK-trade)
Dimensions
Height: 207 mm
Width: 198 mm
Thickness: 22 mm
Weight
462 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-7011-8816-0 (9780701188160)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Ruth Padel
Learning to Make an Oud in Nazareth
E-Book
07/2014
1st Edition
Vintage Digital
€8.99
Available for download
Person
Ruth Padel is a prize-winning poet, Fellow of both the Royal Society of Literature and the Zoological Society of London, and first Resident Writer at Somerset House, London. Her collections include Rembrandt Would Have Loved You, Voodoo Shop and The Soho Leopard, all shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize, and more recently Darwin: A Life in Poems, shortlisted for the Costa Poetry Award.
Highly acclaimed for her nature writing in a book about conservation, Tigers in Red Weather, and her novel, Where the Serpent Lives, she has also published books on contemporary poetry, including 52 Ways of Looking at a Poem and The Poem and the Journey.
In 2014, Ruth Padel is the first Writer in Residence at Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and is recording her experiences in her blog at http://www.ruthpadel.com/blog/.
Highly acclaimed for her nature writing in a book about conservation, Tigers in Red Weather, and her novel, Where the Serpent Lives, she has also published books on contemporary poetry, including 52 Ways of Looking at a Poem and The Poem and the Journey.
In 2014, Ruth Padel is the first Writer in Residence at Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and is recording her experiences in her blog at http://www.ruthpadel.com/blog/.