Mostly Soldiers is a collection of poems about statues. As a resident of Bristol, England, author Cora Ruskin is unavoidably aware of the strong reactions - both political and personal - elicited by these very public works of art. Even uncontroversial statues can raise awkward questions: Why do we have more statues of lions in the world than actual lions? Why are statues of women so much more likely to be naked and nameless?
 
The first section of her chapbook, The Statues, Ruskin explores different emotional, cognitive, and behavioural reactions to statues, while in the second section, The Statues Speak, she indulges in her love of persona poems and gives voice to the statues themselves. The statues who speak include a sculpture of Lucifer in a Birmingham art gallery, a statue that has been stolen, and a statue of a Roman god suffering the indignity of having a traffic cone on his head.
 
Mostly Soldiers is a collection about history - celebration, erasure, reclaiming, and space-making. It reflects Ruskin's fascination with military history, and the awkwardness of being a queer, politically left-leaning woman who is often unwelcome in spaces where military history is discussed. It is also a collection about bodies - the ways in which we value, exalt, and distort them.
 
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Cora Ruskin is a writer of fiction and poetry, including the YA novel Other People’s Butterflies (published by Art Over Chaos) and the poetry chapbook Monster Hunting for Girls Ages 8-14 (published by Dancing Girl Press). You can follow her writing journey on her blog, www.corastillwrites.wordpress.com. She lives in Bristol, UK.
 
Approximately 52 pages.
Perfect-bund paperback with spine.
To be published on April 8, 2025
ISBN: 979-8-89292-670-6
 
ADVANCED PRAISE FOR MOSTLY SOLDIERS
 
“Mostly Soldiers is a dreamlike journey through a crowd of statues and all they represent, brought to life in deeply thoughtful, darkly witty, and often unpredictable ways. Each poem connects us to the next, be it a viewer’s observation or the voice of the statue itself — from nameless war heroes to entangled lovers to toppled slave traders. Cora’s Ruskin’s voice is immediate and important in this unique and multi-layered collection.” — Jo Gatford, author of The Woman’s Part
 
"Cora Ruskin's always intelligent and often funny Mostly Soldiers sneaks the reader into the minds of those explicating or living adjacent to statues, delightfully braiding narrators' interiority with these works of art. Ruskin then goes further, bestowing personas onto sculptures and statues, and it's here where the author's wit shines the most, with lines like "Don’t laugh, but I could have been a dancer" or "I am Neptune, god of... 95% of any given cucumber." If you love art and laughter, this is the book for you." — Todd Dillard, author of Ragnarök at the Father-Daughter Dance