Dimensions
144 x 214 x 27mm
Why do species migrate and why do we move home? Starting with the first living cell to appear on earth and the earliest spread of plants and microbes across the globe, Padel's poems turn to the seasonal migrations of birds and beasts. There are sharply drawn portraits of animals u storm petrels, jellyfish, humpback whales and lemurs u as well as the human immigrants who studied them, such as the ornithologist John James Audubon u and the epic migration of wildebeest and zebra from Kenya to Tanzania; culminating in the crossing of the crocodile-infested Mara River. But the history of civilization is also the story of migration. From early hominids out of Africa and the founding of Rome by refugees from Troy, to diasporas of the modern world and attempts to colonize the moon, The Mara Crossing explores the ways in which we are all 'from somewhere else'. Padel's poems, interwoven with illuminating prose passages, investigate what we learn from animals, how our migrations resemble theirs, and how both animal and human journeys are now affected by the ways in which we have changed, and are changing, our shared planet. Here is a magnificent tapestry of life from the acclaimed author of Darwin: A Life in Poems.
