Ruth Bidgood

Ruth Bidgood (born Ruth Jones, 20 July 1922) is a Welsh poet and local historian, born at Blaendulais, Seven Sisters,[1] near Neath, and writing in English.

Background

Ruth Jones's Welsh-speaking father was a priest in Port Talbot, where Ruth was brought up. She was educated at a grammar school in Port Talbot, and went on to read English at St Hugh's College in the University of Oxford. During World War II, she served as a Wren as a coder in Egypt, at Alexandria.[2]

After the war she worked in London helping to prepare a new edition of Chambers's Encyclopaedia, but eventually she and her husband moved to Coulsdon in Surrey. She and her husband had two sons and one daughter.

She and her husband bought a bungalow at Abergwesyn, near Llanwrtyd Wells in Powys. During the 1960s, she became concerned about the construction of reservoirs and introduction of forestries in mid Wales, which she felt adversely affected the life of the region; this influenced her 1970 collection, The Zombie-Makers.[3] In the 1970s she made her home there, and began publishing poetry and researches into local history.

Collections

In April 2011 her collection, Time Being, was awarded the Roland Mathias Prize.[4]

A book-length study of Bidgood's work, written by Matthew Jarvis, was published in 2012 by the University of Wales Press in the "Writers of Wales" series.[5] The book was launched together with Bidgood's Above the Forests collection at Aberystwyth Arts Centre on 27 July 2012.

Works
  • The Given Time (1972)
  • Seven articles in Transactions of the Radnorshire Society (1974–1980) on Llandewi Hall [6]
  • Not Without Homage (1975)
  • The Print of Miracle (1978)
  • Lighting Candles (1982)
  • Kindred 1986)
  • The Fluent Moment (1996)
  • Singing to Wolves (2000)
  • Parishes of the Buzzard (a local history of Abergwesyn)
  • New and Selected Poems (2004)
  • Symbols of Plenty (2006)
  • Hearing Voices (2008)
  • Time Being (2009)
  • Above the Forests (2012)

Sources
  1. Poetry Wales. C. Davies. 1992. p. 73.
  2. "Ruth Bidgood". Seren Books. Retrieved 22 July 2019.
  3. Jane Aaron (15 May 2013). Welsh Gothic. University of Wales Press. p. 135. ISBN 978-1-78316-559-9.
  4. 'Veteran poet Ruth Bidgood wins Roland Mathias Prize', BBC Wales, 9 April 2012> Retrieved 2012-10-31.
  5. Matthew Jarvis (15 June 2012). Ruth Bidgood. University of Wales Press. ISBN 978-0-7083-2523-0.
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