Poetry is truth – sometimes truth is hard to accept – but we must face those horrors. The poems in Philip Ruthen’s Familial ache to be written: ‘…unsentimentalise
what we’re about to
expect and revive
there are no sweet stories, that’s written
before; wraiths, cluster,
no expediencies of revenge
supplicant show, tell, not reserving these rights…’

[from ‘(Prelude) Cluster’]

This is the hidden truth of a place none of us wants to talk about, even look or think about. Yet, his poetry signs at the romantic – even contemporary pastoral – breaking through. “Look into thy heart and write”, (Sir Philip Sidney), is exactly what Ruthen has done.
– Peter Street

Ruthen’s work seeks a good place for the human, the animate, and the inanimate, ‘…if rock spoke it would implore to be cherished…’ There’s delight in language, not just for its own sake but for the delight it can bring (try ‘Faraway – trees’).
– David Andrew

Familial is produced with arts’ grant assistance from the Gane Trust