Girl

A portrait in verse of two iconic female figures - the Virgin Mary and the Cretan 'snake goddess' - unravelling the millennia of myth men have woven around them.

'One of our most gifted poets ... This is tender and exquisite poetry' Mona Arshi, author of Small Hands

In Girl, Ruth Padel takes a fresh and questioning look at girlhood and its icons. Across a triptych of interlocking sequences, she unravels the millennia of myth woven around girls.

A moving retelling of the Christian story transforms the Virgin Mary into a girl in a Primark T-shirt, facing a life shaped by divine will. Unearthed from the Cretan labyrinth, a prehistoric Snake Goddess is reshaped at the hands of a male archaeologist.

Between these evocative figures, myth turns personal. Delicately crafted lyrics, sometimes taking adventurous shapes, explore snapshots from the poet's own life blended with archetypes from India, European fairy tale, ancient Greece and Urban Dictionary: girl as soul, girl as creative energy, girl as the sacred power of nature, vulnerable but unstoppable. 'Listening to the snowmelt / of the patriarchy', Girl is an urgent, revelatory work for today.