Helen Calcutt

Helen Calcutt (born 1988) is a British poet and writer.[1]

Helen Calcutt

Writing career

Calcutt is a British poet, writer, dancer, and choreographer. She was born in the Midlands (1988).

Calcutt's poety, journalism, and critical writing has been widely published, featuring in the Guardian, the Huffintgon Post,The Brooklyn Review, and Unbound. She has also written award winning essays for the Wales Arts Review and Sabotage. She is the author of two volumes of poetry. 'Sudden rainfall' was published by experimental British publishing house 'Perdika Press' when she was just 23 years old. The book was a PBS Choice on publication, and became Waterstone's best-selling pamphlet collection in 2016. In 2018 Robert Peake summarized her second book'Unable Mother'. ‘This work challenges our abstract and cosy notions of motherhood with a brutal and vulnerable delve into the psyche. Calcutt grapples, sometimes violently, sometimes with aching tenderness, each hard-won line “like squeezing/flesh and fruit from the bone,/this terrible love”. It was published by [https://www.poetrybooks.co.uk/products/unable-mother-helen-calcutt [[V.Press]].]]

Helen is creator and editor of poetry anthology 'Eighty Four'. It was published by Verve Poetry Press in January 2019, and was shortlisted for the Saboteur Best Anthology Award, 2019, and was a Poetry Wales Book the Year 2019.

Dance and choreography

Calcutt is also a professional dancer and choreographer. Calcutt has directed movement for theatre and independent film, working with a specialism in the conversation between text and movement. Her poem 'Naked' was re-created for dance and film by Redstorm Productions. Her poem 'Rope' was made into a short film by Paul Stringer. Her interdisciplinary performances include a solo performance of T.S. Eliot's 'Marina' at the Poetry International,[2] a physical adaptation of T.S. Eliot's landmark poem 'The Wasteland as part of the 2016 N.A.W.E. Writers Conference at the University of Bolton, and a collaborative movement work based on Owen Sheers' poem 'Last Act'. Her work has been endorsed by The Poetry Society, N.A.W.E, and First Story.

Calcutt originally trained in commercial dance, before studying contemporary movement at Trinity Laban, and later moving into a career in dance-theatre and movement direction. She is also a latin and Cuban salsa[3] dancer.

Activism

Calcutt is an activist for mental health awareness, and male suicide prevention. She is creator and editor of acclaimed poetry anthology, 'Eighty Four'[4] The title stands for the number of men who take their lives every week in the U.K.

The book was published by Verve Poetry Press (2019) was shortlisted for the Saboteur Best Anthology Award, 2019, and was a Poetry Wales Book of The Year 2019. It features award-winning poets Andrew McMillan, Salena Godden, Anthony Anaxogorou, Katrina Naomi, Ian Patterson, Caroline Smith, Carrie Etter, Mario Petrucci, Peter Raynard, and Joelle Taylor.

Helen lost her own brother to suicide in September 2017

Bibliography
  • 2013: Sudden rainfall, Perdika Press, ISBN 978-1-905649-17-4
  • 2018: Unable Mother, V.Press, ISBN 978-1-9998444-0-0
  • 2019: Anthology Eighty Four Verve Poetry Press ISBN 978-1-91256513-9

References
  1. Bell, Jo. Bugged. Bell Jar Press, 2010pg 116
  2. "A Bodily Writing". Southbank Centre.
  3. https://www.dancexchange.org.uk/people/helen-culcutt/
  4. https://vervepoetrypress.com/product/eighty-four-poems-on-male-suicide-vulnerability-grief-and-hope/
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