Poetry
Ask for a commissioned piece.
Ruth’s poems are the stepping stones of her life’s journey. It is her unique blend of poetry and coaching that have taken her around South Africa, to Mbabane, Cario, Beijing and Maastricht. Ruth presented workshops and creativity lectures at the National Schools Arts Festival for seventeen consecutive years and was a regular at Arts Festivals in every province.
Her poems turn up in classrooms and exam papers, at a funeral in Ireland or publications in the UK. Ruth’s poems have appeared in stage performances and one was set to music for a production on the Hague. Madiba 9, was performed as part of the Mandela Centenary celebrations. The power of poetry is that it goes to places beyond the writer’s imagination to meet someone in a quiet heart conversation. It is part of a universal language that crosses borders and boundaries.
Ruth is often commissioned to write poems and this is a discipline that she relishes. It is finding the right words to express what others feel and know but are not able to craft for themselves.
Ruth’s poem, Poetry is Dangerous, is a reflection of her poetic process.
POETRY IS DANGEROUS
Poetry is dangerous,
Poetry is a hot rush of passion;
Foot flat to the page Words flashing past on
either side Driving through full stops Down
Every one way line Tempting death or derision
… ‘till the th-ink tank runs dry.
Poetry is dangerous,
Poetry flickers fork-tongued after midnight,
Coiling through inky convolutions,
Spitting phrases at the moon-eyed night.
Poetry lies languorously, constricting words.
Swallowing the cold-blooded poet,
It sheds a stanza and slithers on.
Poetry is dangerous,
Poetry will attack when you least expect it.
Poetry is rebellion rolling you and the world,
Poetry will write your tears in ink,
Poetry will hang your soul on barbed wire lines –
The rhythm will beat in your bubbling blood,
Driving you to dance to the serpent’s song,
You-are-I-am-We-are
Its implacable voice.
Ruth anthologies, Landscapes of Courage and No Fire on the Moon are available as PDF copies.
