Philip Ruthen

APRIL/MAY 2025

CONGRATULATIONS to my mother, Shirley Ruthen, who published her memoir 'At Last the Dawn: An Alphabet of Memories - from South Africa to Europe' on her 90th birthday!

It's available as a Kindle E-Edition.

The printed book is currently via the distributor - contact via prworddesignsATgmail.com

In due course the aim is Amazon POD printed edition also.

[I've nearly finished first draft manuscript for my next poetry collection, due for publication sometime Autumn-ish 2025, '-ish' being the crucial bit; and with Waterloo Press]

January 2025

To prompt myself that I'm still here, ahead of a fourth poetry collection due late Spring '25, and I guess maybe offer a contemporary link to/fro:

Poem for an operatic treatment - uncodified

Callas in her sleep, there is no burning.

Act, and you will find enough,

Throw and catch your voice —

Admire yourself, but,

The autobus is waiting.

The next theatre is the next theatre of futures

Or, it is collapse —

The mist will not be passion

But the demolitions of your masque

And, the expelled breath of Callas, stirring, laughing.

Philip Ruthen

from Jetty View Holding (2009)

All rights remain with the author.

Autumn 2022

Whilst waiting for my 4th poetry collection, you can still buy direct from Waterloo Press the 'official bootleg' printed edition of 'Familial', my third collection.

The Kindle E-Edition of 'Familial' still exists for the post-modern world...

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Other news

Available - the Kindle E-Edition of poetic-prose chapbook memoir 'One Hundred Days War', published on its own after a gap of nearly a decade: "...I would not be at all surprised if this turns out to be one of the classics in writing about Mental Health..." Peter Street (Poet, writer).

Previous news - 2016

A third poetry collection - 'Familial' - published by Waterloo Press with kind assistance from the South West of England's 'The Gane Trust'. With thanks to David Pollard for both his patience, and design.

A brief biog:

Over the past three decades, Philip Ruthen's extensive body of book reviews, articles, poetry and short fiction can be found in diverse places, for example: 'The Recusant' e-journal; 'International Times'; 'Poetrybay' (USA); 'Nthposition'; 'Cambrensis - Short Story Wales'; also book reviews via Todd Swift's 'Eyewear' blog-zine; and the ISSN e-zine 'Poetry Express' published by Survivors' Poetry, where he also sometimes volunteers as a commissioning editor.

Philip's collected short stories, 'feint ruled lines: stories and incidents', and the political poetry pamphlet 'Test, Match, Day, Room: Jasper Ward, The Sequence', this latter sequence written in-situ at the now-close Sutton Hospital psychiatric unit in 2003, are now published by Waterloo Press via their imprint 'PalamidiPress'; both are available in print as POD, and as Kindle E-Editions.

After a BA at U.W.I.S.T., Cardiff, Ruthen gained an English Literature MA at the University of Warwick in the 1980's, where his dissertation explored Marxist cultural theories and Ford Madox Ford’s First World War tetralogy 'Parade’s End', more recent study includes achieving a MRes in Law, Birkbeck College, University of London, concentrating on mental health and medical law, political theory, and civil rights.

Having moved to Devon, UK, with poet Maggie Sullivan, he regularly spends significant time in south London, for family, and ongoing work reasons, as well as working as an Associate Lecturer at the University of Exeter.

A recent editorial team member of 'Writing in Education' magazine, from the National Association of Writers in Education (NAWE), current book designer and design consultant with Waterloo Press, he is also a former mentor, editor, Trustee, and Chair of the national literature development and disability arts charity Survivors' Poetry (SP).