"This Visible Worm" is one of my favourites. I wrote it years ago after seeing the movie Dangerous Minds, in which a teacher asked her students to take the Dylan/Dylan challenge; that is, to find the common elements in the works of Dylan Thomas and Bob Dylan.
I decided to set myself the "William Willie challenge." This poem first appeared in the British literary magazine, Magma, way back in 2003
THIS VISIBLE WORM
a homage to William Blake and Willie Nelson
She isn't the ramblin' kind,
but a bloom from a pretty rose tree,
and she gave all her love to this visible worm
and made a good man out of me.
The first time I saw her sweet face,
I felt clean and as pure as a lamb,
yet strong as a tyger and brave as a sweep
for she's made me the man that I am.
To buy her the things that she needs
I will work graveyard shift at the mill.
No matter how dark and satanic the toil
I'll all of her wishes fulfill.
And on our days off we will stroll,
through the echoing woods hand in hand.
Our songs we'll combine in the sweet Georgia pine
a pleasant and green forest land.
(c) Ruth Latta, 2003, 2020
Thursday, April 16, 2020
Wednesday, April 15, 2020
Two poems
Prior to the pandemic, I was a volunteer facilitator of the writers' group at the Emerald Plaza library here in Ottawa. Although the group is on the back burner indefinitely, I know that members are writing. I am too, working on a sequel to Votes, Love and War.
Over the past forty years I've had a great many poems published in literary and other magazines. I've toyed with the idea of collecting them in book form someday - don't know when. Although I retain the copyright to these poems, they are ineligible for future publication in magazines and future entry in contests because they have already been published.
"So why not put some of them on your blog?" I asked myself.
Here are two:
"How do I love you?" was published in Volume 12 of Harpweaver, the literary magazine of Brock University. It was written to my husband one Valentine's Day and is a homage to Elizabeth Barrett Browning's sonnet, "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways..."
HOW DO I LOVE YOU?|
How do I love you? I'll enumerate:
I love you for your scientific mind,
although it means that I may chance to find
some fungi samples on the fridge's grate.
And thinking back to our initial date,
was it not Star Wars that, so very kind,
you thought of, so that we could both unwind?
(And I kept down the popcorn that I ate.)
I love you for the way you persevered
as Igor to a dreadful Frankenstein
Though some of your department heads were weird
with skill you managed them and did not whine.
With kindness and with passion you have cheered
my life, and I am glad that you are mine.
(c) Ruth Latta, 2020
***
The following poem was published in 1997 in Of Unicorns and Space Stations, Volume 3, Number 4, a Utah publication
SHE DREAMED SHE COULD FLY
She dreamed she could fly
while others lay sleeping.
In her white nightgown,
out to the fields
where foxes snuggle in their lairs,
where frogs chirp a rhythm
in the dark, cool pond,
where slowly, imperceptibly
in millimeters
buds grow into apple-green leaves.
A white garden of trilliums
between the birches
gaze up at the stars.
She dreamed that as she flew over
her toes just brushed the tips
of the dewy grass
and that she could smell
the wild cherry tree
raise up its spiky florets
to the moon.
(c) Ruth Latta, 2020
Over the past forty years I've had a great many poems published in literary and other magazines. I've toyed with the idea of collecting them in book form someday - don't know when. Although I retain the copyright to these poems, they are ineligible for future publication in magazines and future entry in contests because they have already been published.
"So why not put some of them on your blog?" I asked myself.
Here are two:
"How do I love you?" was published in Volume 12 of Harpweaver, the literary magazine of Brock University. It was written to my husband one Valentine's Day and is a homage to Elizabeth Barrett Browning's sonnet, "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways..."
HOW DO I LOVE YOU?|
How do I love you? I'll enumerate:
I love you for your scientific mind,
although it means that I may chance to find
some fungi samples on the fridge's grate.
And thinking back to our initial date,
was it not Star Wars that, so very kind,
you thought of, so that we could both unwind?
(And I kept down the popcorn that I ate.)
I love you for the way you persevered
as Igor to a dreadful Frankenstein
Though some of your department heads were weird
with skill you managed them and did not whine.
With kindness and with passion you have cheered
my life, and I am glad that you are mine.
(c) Ruth Latta, 2020
***
The following poem was published in 1997 in Of Unicorns and Space Stations, Volume 3, Number 4, a Utah publication
SHE DREAMED SHE COULD FLY
She dreamed she could fly
while others lay sleeping.
In her white nightgown,
out to the fields
where foxes snuggle in their lairs,
where frogs chirp a rhythm
in the dark, cool pond,
where slowly, imperceptibly
in millimeters
buds grow into apple-green leaves.
A white garden of trilliums
between the birches
gaze up at the stars.
She dreamed that as she flew over
her toes just brushed the tips
of the dewy grass
and that she could smell
the wild cherry tree
raise up its spiky florets
to the moon.
(c) Ruth Latta, 2020
Wednesday, March 25, 2020
Emerald Plaza book event, March 3rd 2020
Sunday, February 16, 2020
Book event, Ruth Latta and Ainalem Tebeje
Ottawa authors Ruth Latta and Ainalem Tebeje
present their novels
in honour of International Women's Week
at the Emerald Plaza Branch
of the Ottawa Public Library
Tuesday, March 3, 2020, 1:30 to 3:00 p.m.
Votes, Love and War, by Ruth Latta, is a novel about the Manitoba women's suffrage movement and World War I
My Love Story in Broken English, by Ainalem Tebeje, is about a newlywed couple in Ethiopia. The husband defends his bride against harmful cultural customs.
present their novels
in honour of International Women's Week
at the Emerald Plaza Branch
of the Ottawa Public Library
Tuesday, March 3, 2020, 1:30 to 3:00 p.m.
Votes, Love and War, by Ruth Latta, is a novel about the Manitoba women's suffrage movement and World War I
My Love Story in Broken English, by Ainalem Tebeje, is about a newlywed couple in Ethiopia. The husband defends his bride against harmful cultural customs.
Wednesday, December 25, 2019
"Short story, "Pranks"
Hello everyone.
It gives me great pleasure to announce the winners of the Fifteen Stories High Short Story Anthology for 2020. Further information will follow regarding the launch, pre-orders of books etc. but I wanted to ensure every one received the announcement prior to Christmas.
We apologize for the delay but it was a tough decision and our judge - Mr. Sam Piccolo. He had a very difficult time reading and re - reading in order to get them in the right order.
First Place Winner with her story Colours in the Rain - INGRID BETZ
Second Place Winner with her story Pranks - RUTH LATTA
Third Place Winner with her story New Brooms - CHRISTINE JARVIS
Tuesday, November 19, 2019
"Grace in Love" reviewed in "Glebe Report"
Grace in Love (Ottawa, Baico, 2018, $25) was reviewed in the October 2019 issue of The Glebe Report. The review is below.
Grace in Love chronicles Grace MacInnis’s struggles with romance
Grace in Love, a novel by Ruth Latta
Reviewed by Randal Marlin
Grace in Love is a sequel to Ruth Latta’s earlier historical novel about Grace MacInnis as a thirteen year old and her father, J.S. Woodsworth. This time, Grace is twenty-two years old and enrolled on scholarship in a six-month curse in French civilization at the Sorbonne. We follow her through her time in Paris to her government job in Ottawa.
Latta has combined diligent research into the facts of this period, evidenced through archives, including letters and reports of the time, with an imaginative reconstruction of Grace’s likely interactions and introspections. The result is a highly readable, informative account of influences on the career of Grace MacInnis, MP, who became a prominent parliamentary advocate for social equality, particularly regarding women’s rights.
Although this is a novel, the reader absorbs a lot of Canada’s social history, often presented painlessly in the form of dialogue or mental flashbacks in the mind of Grace. The central theme of the book is Grace’s encounters and relationships with different men at different stages of her life. She has to come to terms with her own aims and expectations and has to reckon with how these attachments will fit with a permanent commitment to a partner. Included in this reckoning is an estimate of how likely the other will be to reciprocate such a commitment, with all the necessary adjustments.
The opening scene is her arrival at her place in Paris. “She looked up at the house, saw a lace curtain twitch in a window and a young voice saying, “C’est la Canadienne.”
She then meets Mme De Bussy, who takes in boarders, university students, who interact freely, but the door must be left open if genders mix. The adjustments to life in Paris produce a lot of tensions for Grace.
She would like to be a teacher of French, like her mother, though she doesn’t see herself as having the same level of dedication. Her father, J.S. Woodsworth, a Methodist minister, fell out of favour with his Church when he opposed the “Great War”, as it was then known. A supporter of the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike, he was arrested and briefly jailed. In 1921 he was elected Member of Parliament for Winnipeg North Centre and the family moved to Ottawa.
While Grace studies hard in Paris, she also has something of a social whirl, joining other girls from the Sorbonne at cafes near Boulevards Montparnasse and Raspail. The talk gravitates to free love and then to birth control that was prohibited at the time. They agree that legalization would be necessary for women to reach their full potential.
At one of the gathering spots she becomes smitten by a young man who is “movie star handsome”, Willem Van Aarden, a Dutchman from South Africa. He had recently received a doctorate from the University of London. As Latta describes the scene, Willem smiles at Grace and “every nerve in her body came alive. She began fiddling with her hair.’ He is attracted to her and a roller-coaster of romance begins. She’s all for the fun life in Paris, but hesitates when she finds they have differing values likely to interfere with a permanent good relationship.
Returning to Canada she gets a teaching job but becomes dispirited when her students lack the motivation to learn French. She feels called to a career in social activism. Luckily there is a socialist-minded MP, who has little formal education, and can make use of her talents. Older readers may remember the sophisticated Café Henry Burger where he invites her to dinner. She learns to curb her literary references when she sees he might be embarrassed by not getting them. The two start to move into a new amatory relationship, but Ottawa being what it is, that must be concealed. The two support each other, with both of them becoming eminent speakers who help to transform the very unequal relations between men and women at the time.
The novel is carried along with humour and by evocative references to songs and movies . You get a good sense of the mood of the different characters from Latta’s careful choice of the music they listen to. Though archival documentation is amply provided it sometimes slows the narrative flow. The history of Canada’s left-leaning politics is well conveyed, and that of Grace’s development in particular. All in all, the book is fast-paced, with rich descriptions of France’s countryside and Parisian social life.
Randal Marlin is a professor emeritus of philosophy at Carleton University and the author of many works, including Propaganda and the Ethics of Persuasion.
https://www.glebereport.ca/books-featured-in-october/
Grace in Love chronicles Grace MacInnis’s struggles with romance
Grace in Love, a novel by Ruth Latta
Reviewed by Randal Marlin
Grace in Love is a sequel to Ruth Latta’s earlier historical novel about Grace MacInnis as a thirteen year old and her father, J.S. Woodsworth. This time, Grace is twenty-two years old and enrolled on scholarship in a six-month curse in French civilization at the Sorbonne. We follow her through her time in Paris to her government job in Ottawa.
Latta has combined diligent research into the facts of this period, evidenced through archives, including letters and reports of the time, with an imaginative reconstruction of Grace’s likely interactions and introspections. The result is a highly readable, informative account of influences on the career of Grace MacInnis, MP, who became a prominent parliamentary advocate for social equality, particularly regarding women’s rights.
Although this is a novel, the reader absorbs a lot of Canada’s social history, often presented painlessly in the form of dialogue or mental flashbacks in the mind of Grace. The central theme of the book is Grace’s encounters and relationships with different men at different stages of her life. She has to come to terms with her own aims and expectations and has to reckon with how these attachments will fit with a permanent commitment to a partner. Included in this reckoning is an estimate of how likely the other will be to reciprocate such a commitment, with all the necessary adjustments.
The opening scene is her arrival at her place in Paris. “She looked up at the house, saw a lace curtain twitch in a window and a young voice saying, “C’est la Canadienne.”
She then meets Mme De Bussy, who takes in boarders, university students, who interact freely, but the door must be left open if genders mix. The adjustments to life in Paris produce a lot of tensions for Grace.
She would like to be a teacher of French, like her mother, though she doesn’t see herself as having the same level of dedication. Her father, J.S. Woodsworth, a Methodist minister, fell out of favour with his Church when he opposed the “Great War”, as it was then known. A supporter of the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike, he was arrested and briefly jailed. In 1921 he was elected Member of Parliament for Winnipeg North Centre and the family moved to Ottawa.
While Grace studies hard in Paris, she also has something of a social whirl, joining other girls from the Sorbonne at cafes near Boulevards Montparnasse and Raspail. The talk gravitates to free love and then to birth control that was prohibited at the time. They agree that legalization would be necessary for women to reach their full potential.
At one of the gathering spots she becomes smitten by a young man who is “movie star handsome”, Willem Van Aarden, a Dutchman from South Africa. He had recently received a doctorate from the University of London. As Latta describes the scene, Willem smiles at Grace and “every nerve in her body came alive. She began fiddling with her hair.’ He is attracted to her and a roller-coaster of romance begins. She’s all for the fun life in Paris, but hesitates when she finds they have differing values likely to interfere with a permanent good relationship.
Returning to Canada she gets a teaching job but becomes dispirited when her students lack the motivation to learn French. She feels called to a career in social activism. Luckily there is a socialist-minded MP, who has little formal education, and can make use of her talents. Older readers may remember the sophisticated Café Henry Burger where he invites her to dinner. She learns to curb her literary references when she sees he might be embarrassed by not getting them. The two start to move into a new amatory relationship, but Ottawa being what it is, that must be concealed. The two support each other, with both of them becoming eminent speakers who help to transform the very unequal relations between men and women at the time.
The novel is carried along with humour and by evocative references to songs and movies . You get a good sense of the mood of the different characters from Latta’s careful choice of the music they listen to. Though archival documentation is amply provided it sometimes slows the narrative flow. The history of Canada’s left-leaning politics is well conveyed, and that of Grace’s development in particular. All in all, the book is fast-paced, with rich descriptions of France’s countryside and Parisian social life.
Randal Marlin is a professor emeritus of philosophy at Carleton University and the author of many works, including Propaganda and the Ethics of Persuasion.
https://www.glebereport.ca/books-featured-in-october/
Tuesday, November 5, 2019
I reviewed The Clean Body
I reviewed The Clean Body by Peter Ward in Compulsive Reader. Below is the link:
http://www.
http://www.
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