Helena Nelson has recently transformed herself into a star performance poet. Her appearance at the 2007 Poetry Prom at Snape, with Adrian Mitchell and Michael Rosen, was celebrated with a tumult of applause. Starlight On Water is her first book. It was a Jerwood Aldeburgh First Collection prize winner. Some of the performance favourites are here, \u2018Deserve Has Nothing To Do With It\u2019, \u2018Genderalizations\u2019, \u2018Mens Sana in Corpore Banano,\u2019 etc., but there\u2019s also much else, including the remarkable Mr and Mrs Philpott poems, a sequence of nineteen meditations on love in later life – domesticity, desire, and the time that passes.<\/p>\n
Helena is one of those poets whose writing can stab with joy or sorrow – and you never know which it is going to be. In \u2018Distance\u2019, an astonishingly accomplished poem, the joy, for me, is in the poet\u2019s skill; the sorrow in the poignancy of the subject matter. I\u2019m hoping her new career as a publisher – she runs Happenstance Press – is leaving her time for her own writing. Bike with no hands<\/strong><\/p>\n One look at you and I knew I’d tried it, of course, but could never do it. I wish \u2013 but then, we are what we are. Helena Nelson was born in Knutsford in 1953 and educated at the University of York. She lives in Fife and teaches English & Creative Writing at Glenrothes College. Helena runs a small press, Happenstance and edits the magazine Sphinx.<\/p>\n \u2018Starlight on Water is a scintillating collection by one of Scotland\u2019s sharpest, most enjoyable talents. I recommend it without reservation.\u2019 \u2018Warm, witty, musical and moving, Helena Nelson\u2019s poems honour everyday life. She is that rare thing: a good popular poet. Read her.\u2019 (The Rialto First Collection Series 2003) Helena Nelson was born in Knutsford in 1953 and educated at the University of York. She lives in Fife and teaches English & Creative Writing at Glenrothes College. Helena runs a small press, Happenstance and edits the magazine Sphinx.<\/p>\n
\nMichael Mackmin<\/em><\/p>\n
\nyou’d be able to ride a bike with no hands.<\/p>\n
\nIt was written all over your face that you
\nwould have practised, bare legs, bloody knees,
\nin the summer evenings, hours at a time
\nwhen no-one was watching the mishaps, until
\ncasually, coolly, at infinite ease
\nyou’d ride, no-handed, surveying the street
\nas if you’d been born on a circus bike.<\/p>\n
\nI drive with two hands, walk with both feet
\nfirmly planted on sensible ground. And
\nI’ve got you. Who can ride with no hands.<\/p>\nAuthor biog<\/h3>\n
\nAnne Stevenson<\/p>\n
\nAlison Brackenbury<\/p>\n
\nISBN 09527444-5-7<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"