Ruth R. Pierson
Ruth Roach Pierson taught women’s history, feminist and post-colonial studies at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education/University of Toronto from 1980 to 2001, and European and women’s history at Memorial University of Newfoundland from 1970 to 1980. Since retiring she has published three poetry collections: Where No Window Was (BuschekBooks, 2002), Aide-Mémoire (BuschekBooks, 2007), which was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award in 2008, and Contrary (Tightrope Books, 2011). A fourth, Realignment, will appear from Palimpsest Press in 2015. She is the editor of the anthology of film poems I Found It at the Movies (Guernica Editions, 2014).
Articles by
Ruth R. Pierson
I have only what I remember, Merwin writes, resigned not to a dearth
but an omnium-gatherum of memories—whether amorphous and unloosed
from time or firmly grounded and undimmed as though he’s again
playing, in the re-entered past, the protagonist in the theatre of life.
From time to time mine ambush me as I walk down the street in full…
marathoning into the night — only so many brushstrokes
left — terre verts mixed with umber — swift swipes
of flake white
brushwork — deft and layered — smooth around the man’s
shoulders — crusty and impassioned
along the arms
every twitch of facial muscle — caught — every bulge
of subcutaneous thigh-fat — whorled…
Deadly germs, my mother believed,
live in cracks – particularly those gracing
diner and five & dime dishware. Sent
back, to my mortification,
any food, liquid or solid, served
in a cup or on a plate marred
by the tiniest hairline fracture.
So no surprise I’m driven to ditch
the patched, the darned, the scotch-
and…
