Land-Music - Black Mountains

About Ruth Bidgood

Born in Seven Sisters Glamorgan Ruth was educated in Port Talbot before reading English at Oxford University. During World War II she served as a Wren in the Middle East. She was sub-editor of Chambers'' Encyclopedia. After many years in Surrey Ruth returned to Wales and settled in Abergwesyn where she started to write poems and document local history. Her work has been published in various journals and collections. Not Without Homage (Christopher Davies 1975) received a Welsh Arts Council award; and both Selected Poems (Seren 1992) and The Fluent Moment (Seren 1996) were shortlisted for the Welsh Arts Council Book of the Year Award in 1993 and 1997. Her New and Selected Poems (Seren 2004) was shortlisted for the Roland Mathias Prize in 2005 and Time Being (Seren 2009) won the Roland Mathias Prize for 2011 and was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. Ruth is a Fellow of Academi. A full-length study of her work was written by Matthew Jarvis. Her previous collections with Cinnamon Press include Hearing Voices (2008) Above the Forests (2012) and the tete-beche double collection Land Music / Black Mountains. Her latest collection is the pamphlet Lights.