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.
