Ruth Hanchett

Enfield Middlesex UK

Ruth Hanchett’s career in social work and education involved various forms of writing.  In 1998 her book To Challenge or Not to Challenge, a response to psychiatry, was published with a Mind Millenium award.  After retirement she began to write poetry, inspired particularly by observation of people and herself and joined Enfield Poets, The Poetry Society, Palmer’s Green Stanza Group, Second Light and The British Haiku Society.   She has been commended in competitions, won third prize in the Barnet Competition 2014 and first prize in the Segora 2016.  Some of her poems have been published in journals and anthologies such as Artemis, Acumen and The Book of Love and Loss.  Some Effects of Brilliance is her debut pamphlet, published 2019.

Date poem completed: 7th May 2020

8.0 Blonde

Luminous as Aladdin’s lamp

the magical box desired by Old Age

brightens the cave-like kitchen:

oil–powered Olia with 2 x more shine,

ready to be rubbed into grey hair.

The colorant coils into the hand

of Old Age who rubs and rubs. Grey

whimpers into a whisper of smoke:

the genie of a 100% coverage is there,

granting every wish to hide the real. 

He seizes the sunflower gleaming

on the top of the box, waves it

to release the Flower Oils of Natural

Origin, wondrous for weary hair.

Old Age seems no longer to be there.