Fran Lock is one of the most prolific and outstanding poets out there today, fighting with her writing. Bristling with multi-bladed language and an anger born of compassion, she takes poetry in directions the mainstream dares not take. 

 

Her first collection with Culture Matters, Muses and Bruises, brilliantly juxtaposed the lives of the nine Muses of Greek mythology, with a vivid, grotesque imagining of a grimy, glittery place called Rag Town, and the working-class girls who inhabit it. 

 

In Ruses and Fuses, Fran Lock takes us to the rebellious, inspiring heart of English dissent with her portrayals of Levellers and Diggers such as Gerard Winstanley and Ned Ludd, and their fight with authorities over property rights. She also writes of witches, workingclass suffragettes, and the unsung, unlovable labours of working-class women. Her poetry conflates historical detail and present crisis to highlight both the continuation of violence against women, and the continuum  of solidarity and sisterhood that exists despite this abuse.

 

Ruses and Fuses, like Muses and Bruises, is adorned with the poignant, sensitive collages of Steev Burgess.