Learning to Make an Oud in Nazareth

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'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

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

Superb collection… Sorrowful and elegiac...though it ends on a note not entirely without hope

Lesley Mcdowell, Glasgow Sunday Herald

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

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 Williams