Somehow

By Helen Calcutt

In September 2017, Helen Calcutt's brother Matthew took his own life. He was 40 years old.
'… the phone rang / and when I answered it / you'd killed / yourself, and that was the start / of you being dead.'
This is the starting point of an astonishing new pamphlet of poems by Helen Calcutt. At times harrowing; at others hopeful – always deeply felt and beautifully realised. These poems display the poise and precision of a poet already at the height of her powers, writing the un-writable, weaving the terrible into something relatable and filled with the light of understanding.
How do we survive the tumultuous presence of grief? How does the trauma of losing a loved one to suicide affect, our identity, our creativity, and our ability to love? How – in a world shattered by incomparable change and severe loss – do we build a life from the wreckage? Because we do.
Somehow, we do.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Verve Poetry Press
• Release date: Sep 17, 2020
• ISBN: 9781912565856

Helen Calcutt

Helen Calcutt’s poetry and critical writing has appeared in the Guardian, the Huffington Post, the Brooklyn Review, Unbound, Poetry Scotland, Wild Court, Envoi, The London Magazine and others. Her debut pamphlet, Sudden Rainfall (Perdika, 2014) was a PBS Choice. Her debut collection, Unable Mother, was published by V.Press in 2018. She is the editor and creator of Anthology Eighty-Four (Verve Poetry Press, 2019) which was a Sabotage Best Anthology short-listed title, and a Poetry Wales Book of the Year, and raised money for CALM’s prevent male suicide campaign.

Book preview

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PUBLISHED BY VERVE POETRY PRESS

https://vervepoetrypress.com

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All rights reserved

© 2020 Helen Calcutt

The right of Helen Calcutt to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

No part of this work may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, recorded or mechanical, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

FIRST PUBLISHED SEP 2020

Printed and bound in the UK by Positive Print, Birmingham

ISBN: 978-1-912565-42-9

ePub ISBN: 978-1-912565-85-6

Cover Art Credit: Katherine Sheers

CONTENTS

Now my brother has died

Something terrible happened

Light

Waving, or drowning?

A conversation with my daughter about my brother’s suicide

Wonderful

Found

Bath time

City birds

Sing dove

A mountain that is your grief you can’t utter

Rope