This Deafening Cacophony 

some prophecies are written in the past tense; it was always going to have happened. i write prophecy in the present tense; if it is going to happen, it is already happening.

Introduction

I’m Ruth (she/her) and I write a lot, mainly poems, but I am also a historian, proofreader, and tarot card reader. I don't want to spill my whole life story but I'm also dyspraxic and hypermobile. I’m currently studying dress and textile histories, and my research is focused on deliberately concealed garments in UK buildings. I’m going to list a few of my WIPs and projects so that you know what to expect from my blog!

WIPs and Projects: 

Substack - I now have a newsletter for my historical research if you are interested! It is about deliberately concealed garments and concealment rituals around clothing and shoes, the stories of the people who owned these objects and their emotional dimensions.

Poetry collection - Holly House. I need to go back over some of my posts and add tags for the poems that are part of this collection. Holly House refers to the name of the house that I first started writing poems in and that has been a massive source of inspiration. 

Mirror World WIP - a historical fantasy/magical realism book I have been planning for a long time

Tales and Stories of the Fairy Kind - I can't help but dabble in rewriting fairy tales, but with much more of a historical perspective. Right now, I am writing a seventeenth century take on Cinderella that focuses on domestic relationships and how romance and fantasy is used as a means of escape and freedom for many people surviving through abuse

Here are all my links:

My Substack

My Etsy

My Instagram

My Pinterest

Thank you for stopping by!

Ruth

on winter and longing

Sarah Kay, Natalie Diaz, Craig Keenan, Clarice Lispector, Mahmoud Darwish, Brittany Cossette, Franz Kafka, Edvard Munch, Richard Siken, Haruki Murakami, Holly Warburton, Mahmoud Darwish

buy me a coffee

George Seferis, tr. by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard, from The Collected Poems 1924-1955; “And if the soul”

the memory of a memory, Katie Maria

I'll listen for a while

but soon I'll start writing

the air absorbs my words

whispered ink, floating, swirling

a thousand voices silently churning

a brilliant light that clouds the senses

drowning in heady daydreams

and forgotten thoughts.

'I'm sorry, what did you say?' I'll say politely.

I don’t know where I’m going. Where I came from is disappearing. I am unwelcome. My beauty is not beauty here. My body is burning with the shame of not belonging, my body is longing. I am the sin of memory and the absence of memory.

Warsan Shire, from Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head; “Home”

Julia de Burgos, tr. by Heather Rosario Sievert, from These Are Not Sweet Girls: Poetry by Latin American Women; "Transmutation"

[Text ID: "To love you / I have detached the world from my shoulders, / and have remained desert in sea and star, / simple / like the light."]

There are roses in your cheeks

and violets in your eyes -- 

all devotion to the setting skies