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.