‘CALCUTT HAS TALENT TO BURN’
‘These poems carefully record how women’s bodies can be dominated and controlled in the intimacy of the bedroom and the cold light of the hospital room when they give birth. Calcutt’s poems have a descriptive power which illuminates a story that so many women will recognize and understand.’
– Zoe Brigley, author of ‘Hand & Skull’
‘Feeling all the Kills is about how trauma shapes the soul. Calcutt bears witness to a life ‘dazzling and damaging enough’, in which tenderness is always haunted by brutality. Her imagery reveals how sexual violence imposes itself upon the everyday, so that even the trees seem to have their hair ‘roughed against headboards’. But these poems are also fierce and beautiful in their resolve to heal. Helen Calcutt has talent to burn.’
– Claire Pollard, author of ‘Delphi’
‘Feeling All the Kills’
(OUT 29TH APRIL 24′, Pavilion Poetry)
‘Feeling All the Kills is a dazzling new collection that breaks the poet’s silence on what it means to experience and live in the wake of a violent assault and rape. Through the poems’ breathtaking and vital vocabulary Calcutt brings the physical, emotional, and sexual nuances of life to the foreground, with strength, subtlety and beauty, and courageously harnesses a sense of ownership over such a lasting trauma.
At the heart of this collection is a personal desire to navigate a way back to a sensual, whole-feeling self, to shamelessly ‘feel all’ — with authenticity and power.’
Eighty Four
Poems on Male Suicide, Vulnerability, Grief and Hope
Poetry Wales Book of the Year, Sabotage Award Shortlist (19′)
‘Eighty Four’ was originally a new anthology of poetry on the subject of male suicide in aid of the suicide prevention charity C.A.L.M. Poems have been donated to the collection by Andrew McMillan, Salena Godden, Anthony Anaxogorou, Katrina Naomi, Ian Patterson, Carrie Etter, Peter Raynard and Joelle Taylor, alongside exciting new voices and work.
It has since won the Poetry Wales Book of the Year (2019) and was shorlisted for the Sabotage Best Anthology award (2019).
Read Helen’s introduction to the Eighty Four Anthology HERE
