Fusewire

Not that she really needs the publicity, but any West Midlands readers could do worse than coming to see the poet Ruth Padel read and talk at the Warwick Arts Centre this Wednesday 25th February. What I've read of her new book, Darwin: A Life In Poems, which has been excerpted in the new Poetry Review, is quite excellent, and her previous books - on travel, zoology, sex, rock and insanity, in addition to her poetry - indicate one hell of a prospect of interestingness. (She is also, apparently, the current frontrunner for the post of Oxford Professor of Poetry - I like her plans to get interested in writing about animals and astrophysics...)