I wanted to see Ruth Padel speak at Edinburgh Writers’ Fest, but sadly parental commitments prohibited me at the last minute. I have been both curious and a bit tentative about meeting her, though I sent her an email proposing we should and she responded very sweetly to me. Two women poets with essentially the same project (Darwin in verse) can’t help but be tentative with each other. It’s hard after five years in development to discover somebody else is publishing what appears to be your book, at least in description. It just seems to be one of those creative coincidences. I will have to concede to being a Wallace to her Darwin! But somebody sent me this twitter post the other day, prior to my own reading at Edinburgh on August 17th with the lovely, and most wonderful Jen Hadfield. I hope it doesn’t seem mean that I am just slightly relieved that some punter out there likes my book. Here’s also another link to a happy festival goer’s blog that mentions my readings!
Colin Fraser’s anonpoetry@EddMcCracken Have you read Emily Ballou’s The Darwin Poems? Blows Padel out of the water. She’s reading on the 17th.
28/08/2009 at 1:43 am Permalink
Was at Live Poets for the 1st session on Wednesday, enjoyed the Darwin series immensely! Sorry had to leave early.