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Inside the Wave
COSTA BOOK OF THE YEAR 2017 Winner of the 2017 Costa Poetry Award. To be alive is to be inside the wave, always travelling until it breaks and is gone. These poems are concerned with the borderline between the living and the dead � the underworld and the human living world � and the exquisitely intense being of both. They possess a spare, eloquent lyricism as they explore the bliss and anguish of the voyage.
Inside the Wave , Helen Dunmore's tenth and final book of poetry, followed The Malarkey (2012), whose title-poem won the National Poetry Competition. Her other books include Glad of These Times (2007), and Out of the Blue: Poems 1975-2001 (2001), a comprehensive selection drawing on seven previous collections.
Inside the Wave , Helen Dunmore's tenth and final book of poetry, followed The Malarkey (2012), whose title-poem won the National Poetry Competition. Her other books include Glad of These Times (2007), and Out of the Blue: Poems 1975-2001 (2001), a comprehensive selection drawing on seven previous collections.
70 pages, Paperback
First published April 27, 2017
39 people are currently reading
588 people want to read
About the author
Helen Dunmore
115Ìýbooks946ÌýfollowersI was born in December 1952, in Yorkshire, the second of four children. My father was the eldest of twelve, and this extended family has no doubt had a strong influence on my life, as have my own children. In a large family you hear a great many stories. You also come to understand very early that stories hold quite different meanings for different listeners, and can be recast from many viewpoints.
Poetry was very important to me from childhood. I began by listening to and learning by heart all kinds of rhymes and hymns and ballads, and then went on to make up my own poems, using the forms I’d heard. Writing these down came a little later.
I studied English at the University of York, and after graduation taught English as a foreign language in Finland.
At around this time I began to write the poems which formed my first poetry collection, The Apple Fall, and to publish these in magazines. I also completed two novels; fortunately neither survives, and it was more than ten years before I wrote another novel.
During this time I published several collections of poems, and wrote some of the short stories which were later collected in Love of Fat Men. I began to travel a great deal within the UK and around the world, for poetry tours and writing residences. This experience of working in many different countries and cultures has been very important to my work. I reviewed poetry for Stand and Poetry Review and later for The Observer, and subsequently reviewed fiction for The Observer, The Times and The Guardian. My critical work includes introductions to the poems of Emily Brontë, the short stories of D H Lawrence and F Scott Fitzgerald, a study of Virginia Woolf’s relationships with women and Introductions to the Folio Society's edition of Anna Karenina and to the new Penguin Classics edition of Tolstoy's My Confession.
During the 1980s and early 1990s I taught poetry and creative writing, tutored residential writing courses for the Arvon Foundation and took part in the Poetry Society's Writer in Schools scheme, as well as giving readings and workshops in schools, hospitals, prisons and every other kind of place where a poem could conceivably be welcome. I also taught at the University of Glamorgan, the University of Bristol's Continuing Education Department and for the Open College of the Arts.
In the late 1980s I began to publish short stories, and these were the beginning of a breakthrough into fiction. What I had learned of prose technique through the short story gave me the impetus to start writing novels. My first novel for children was Going to Egypt, published in 1992, and my first novel for adults was Zennor in Darkness, published in 1993, which won the McKitterick Prize. This was also my first researched novel, set in the First World War and dealing with the period when D H Lawrence and his wife Frieda lived in Zennor in Cornwall, and came under suspicion as German spies.
My third novel, A Spell of Winter, won the inaugural Orange Prize for Fiction in 1996, and since then I have published a number of novels, short story collections and books for children. Full details of all these books are available on this website. The last of The Ingo Quartet, The Crossing of Ingo, was published in paperback in Spring 2009.
My seventh novel, The Siege (2001) was shortlisted both for the Whitbread Novel Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction. This was another researched novel, which grew from a lifelong love of Russian history, culture and literature. It is is set in Leningrad during the first year of the siege of the city by German forces, which lasted for 880 days from the fall of Mga on 30th August 1941. The Siege has been translated into Russian by Tatyana Averchina, and extracts have been broadcast on radio in St Petersburg. House of Orphans was published in 2006, and in 2008 Counting the Stars. Its central characters are the Roman poet Catullus, who lived during the last years of the Republic,
Poetry was very important to me from childhood. I began by listening to and learning by heart all kinds of rhymes and hymns and ballads, and then went on to make up my own poems, using the forms I’d heard. Writing these down came a little later.
I studied English at the University of York, and after graduation taught English as a foreign language in Finland.
At around this time I began to write the poems which formed my first poetry collection, The Apple Fall, and to publish these in magazines. I also completed two novels; fortunately neither survives, and it was more than ten years before I wrote another novel.
During this time I published several collections of poems, and wrote some of the short stories which were later collected in Love of Fat Men. I began to travel a great deal within the UK and around the world, for poetry tours and writing residences. This experience of working in many different countries and cultures has been very important to my work. I reviewed poetry for Stand and Poetry Review and later for The Observer, and subsequently reviewed fiction for The Observer, The Times and The Guardian. My critical work includes introductions to the poems of Emily Brontë, the short stories of D H Lawrence and F Scott Fitzgerald, a study of Virginia Woolf’s relationships with women and Introductions to the Folio Society's edition of Anna Karenina and to the new Penguin Classics edition of Tolstoy's My Confession.
During the 1980s and early 1990s I taught poetry and creative writing, tutored residential writing courses for the Arvon Foundation and took part in the Poetry Society's Writer in Schools scheme, as well as giving readings and workshops in schools, hospitals, prisons and every other kind of place where a poem could conceivably be welcome. I also taught at the University of Glamorgan, the University of Bristol's Continuing Education Department and for the Open College of the Arts.
In the late 1980s I began to publish short stories, and these were the beginning of a breakthrough into fiction. What I had learned of prose technique through the short story gave me the impetus to start writing novels. My first novel for children was Going to Egypt, published in 1992, and my first novel for adults was Zennor in Darkness, published in 1993, which won the McKitterick Prize. This was also my first researched novel, set in the First World War and dealing with the period when D H Lawrence and his wife Frieda lived in Zennor in Cornwall, and came under suspicion as German spies.
My third novel, A Spell of Winter, won the inaugural Orange Prize for Fiction in 1996, and since then I have published a number of novels, short story collections and books for children. Full details of all these books are available on this website. The last of The Ingo Quartet, The Crossing of Ingo, was published in paperback in Spring 2009.
My seventh novel, The Siege (2001) was shortlisted both for the Whitbread Novel Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction. This was another researched novel, which grew from a lifelong love of Russian history, culture and literature. It is is set in Leningrad during the first year of the siege of the city by German forces, which lasted for 880 days from the fall of Mga on 30th August 1941. The Siege has been translated into Russian by Tatyana Averchina, and extracts have been broadcast on radio in St Petersburg. House of Orphans was published in 2006, and in 2008 Counting the Stars. Its central characters are the Roman poet Catullus, who lived during the last years of the Republic,
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 78 reviews
May 11, 2020
I don’t need to go to the sun �
It lies on my pillow.
Without movement or speech
Day deepens its sweetness.
Sea shanties from the water,
A brush of traffic,
But it’s quiet here.
Who would have thought that pain
And weakness had such gifts
Hidden in their rough hearts?
(The Shaft)
(Photograph by Kilian Schönberger)
Love, transience and death are, perhaps even more than in narrative fiction, the quintessential themes about which poets sing since time immemorial. Impending death and how deeply the beauty of what is impermanent can stir us are the themes pervading British novelist and poet’s Helen Dunmore last collection Inside the Wave, published in 2017, a month before her death.
Nothing is too small not to deserve the poet’s full and generous attention, not the �mouse-coloured, unglamorous dunnocks�,‘unnoted, untweeted creatures�(Winter Balcony with Dunnocks), not ’the chink of pebble that tumbles� (Cliffs of Fall), not the fragility of ‘the one word that flows from the lips and the one heart by which is it heard�(In Praise of the Piano). Rather does she focus on what goes unnoticed or whom tend to be overlooked, like the unheroic ordinary souls ‘dawdling in the fields of asphodel�, never making it to the Elysium (The Place of Ordinary Souls). She gently fondles our sense of wonder observing the natural world, beauty of which never ceases to touch, whether it is a plane tree she sees from her hospital bed (Plane tree outside Ward 78), or the sundry flowers � violets, mimosa, petunia, camellia, bluebells, lilies, foxglove, the petals of roses which tint her poems.
Are they blue or not blue?
All I know is the smoke
That moves under the trees,
In Tremenheere Woods
Moths clung to the sheet,
It was the hour of Innocence �
We developed flowers
On light-sensitive paper:
They are still here.
We could never walk fast enough,
Seven year olds
Up in the dead of night
Climbing to the lookout
Where bonfires blazed
For reasons long forgotten,
But perhaps because the Romans
Once came this far
To walk the bluebell hollows.
(Bluebell Hollows)
(Photograph by Adrian Popan)
Reflecting on her life, memories of her own childhood, her parents, pregnancy, her children come to the surface, alternating with poems contemplating the journeys that are life and death, alluding on classical myths and literature (Homer, Catullus), reminding me of the weaving of the world of The Odyssey into the confessional poetry of Louise Glück in ; many poems are suffused with observations of the animal and the floral world, meditating on how the world will be unchanged as well as will ever keep changing when we leave it for the underworld and how we can be at peace with that reality, like Odysseus in the titular poem, standing at the shore when at last the voyage is over:
The waves turned and turned
Neither toward nor away from him,
Swash and backwash
Crossing, repeating,
But never the same.
Nor these insights of futility of human life in the light of a world on which we leave no more than a foot print in the sand soon to be washed over by the waves, nor being close to death stops the poet from singing her song:
I know I am dying
But why not keep flowering
As long as I can
From my cut stem?
(From My life’s stem was cut)
A poignant and serene memento mori as well as a celebration of the precious gift that is life, Helen Dunmore’s contemplative swan song collection might be a little uneven as a whole but offers graceful moments of soothing beauty and quiet, joyful insight which might be of help so we can embrace the awareness of our mortality with less fear.
If there is any poem that will stay with me from this collection, it will be The Shaft, reminding one there is almost ever a silver lining, one only needs to open one’s eyes and mind to see it.
I lie and listen
And the life in me stirs like a tide
That knows when it must be gone.
I am on the deep deep water
Lightly held by one ankle
Out of my depth, waiting.
(From September Rain)
(***1/2)
It lies on my pillow.
Without movement or speech
Day deepens its sweetness.
Sea shanties from the water,
A brush of traffic,
But it’s quiet here.
Who would have thought that pain
And weakness had such gifts
Hidden in their rough hearts?
(The Shaft)
(Photograph by Kilian Schönberger)
Love, transience and death are, perhaps even more than in narrative fiction, the quintessential themes about which poets sing since time immemorial. Impending death and how deeply the beauty of what is impermanent can stir us are the themes pervading British novelist and poet’s Helen Dunmore last collection Inside the Wave, published in 2017, a month before her death.
Nothing is too small not to deserve the poet’s full and generous attention, not the �mouse-coloured, unglamorous dunnocks�,‘unnoted, untweeted creatures�(Winter Balcony with Dunnocks), not ’the chink of pebble that tumbles� (Cliffs of Fall), not the fragility of ‘the one word that flows from the lips and the one heart by which is it heard�(In Praise of the Piano). Rather does she focus on what goes unnoticed or whom tend to be overlooked, like the unheroic ordinary souls ‘dawdling in the fields of asphodel�, never making it to the Elysium (The Place of Ordinary Souls). She gently fondles our sense of wonder observing the natural world, beauty of which never ceases to touch, whether it is a plane tree she sees from her hospital bed (Plane tree outside Ward 78), or the sundry flowers � violets, mimosa, petunia, camellia, bluebells, lilies, foxglove, the petals of roses which tint her poems.
Are they blue or not blue?
All I know is the smoke
That moves under the trees,
In Tremenheere Woods
Moths clung to the sheet,
It was the hour of Innocence �
We developed flowers
On light-sensitive paper:
They are still here.
We could never walk fast enough,
Seven year olds
Up in the dead of night
Climbing to the lookout
Where bonfires blazed
For reasons long forgotten,
But perhaps because the Romans
Once came this far
To walk the bluebell hollows.
(Bluebell Hollows)
(Photograph by Adrian Popan)
Reflecting on her life, memories of her own childhood, her parents, pregnancy, her children come to the surface, alternating with poems contemplating the journeys that are life and death, alluding on classical myths and literature (Homer, Catullus), reminding me of the weaving of the world of The Odyssey into the confessional poetry of Louise Glück in ; many poems are suffused with observations of the animal and the floral world, meditating on how the world will be unchanged as well as will ever keep changing when we leave it for the underworld and how we can be at peace with that reality, like Odysseus in the titular poem, standing at the shore when at last the voyage is over:
The waves turned and turned
Neither toward nor away from him,
Swash and backwash
Crossing, repeating,
But never the same.
Nor these insights of futility of human life in the light of a world on which we leave no more than a foot print in the sand soon to be washed over by the waves, nor being close to death stops the poet from singing her song:
I know I am dying
But why not keep flowering
As long as I can
From my cut stem?
(From My life’s stem was cut)
A poignant and serene memento mori as well as a celebration of the precious gift that is life, Helen Dunmore’s contemplative swan song collection might be a little uneven as a whole but offers graceful moments of soothing beauty and quiet, joyful insight which might be of help so we can embrace the awareness of our mortality with less fear.
If there is any poem that will stay with me from this collection, it will be The Shaft, reminding one there is almost ever a silver lining, one only needs to open one’s eyes and mind to see it.
I lie and listen
And the life in me stirs like a tide
That knows when it must be gone.
I am on the deep deep water
Lightly held by one ankle
Out of my depth, waiting.
(From September Rain)
(***1/2)
April 12, 2018
Such gifts hidden in their rough hearts
In my ignorance, I knew Dunmore as a novelist only, and did not realize that she both began and ended her writing career as a poet. Only when seeing that this collection had won the 2017 Costa Award* did I realize my mistake. But it was an occasion to attempt a kind of Dunmore retrospective. Over the past few days, therefore, I have been looking back on all my old reviews of her novels (transferring them from Amazon), reading and reviewing her final novel, , and rereading this farewell collection.
======
Many of the poems are about the sea, and in particular the legend of Orpheus, whom she sees returning to Ithaca as "A dirty old mariner °Ú…] his toenails goat's hooves, his hair a wild nest of old stories." This comes from the title poem, "Inside the Wave," which ends:
As I read, I was comparing Dunmore's collection with the one other cancer-ward testament that I have reviewed, by the Romanian poet Marin Sorescu. Sorescu is more searing in his imagery, more intellectual, more masculine. Dunmore is direct, softer, often expressing herself in those images that would occur to a woman sooner than a man. As in this poem about the simple act of arranging cut flowers:
======
*Two other winners of the 2017 Costa Awards are, as best novel, by Jon McGregor, which I have already reviewed, and, in the debut category, Eleanor Oliphant by Gail Honeyman, which I am enjoying now.
I don't need to go to the sun �Called "The Shaft," this is one of the shorter and simpler poems from the 44 in Helen Dunmore's final collection, Inside the Wave, many of them written as she was struggling with the cancer that carried her off in June 2017. "Struggling" may be the wrong word, since while many of these poems show that she is entirely aware of her condition, there is little focus on pain. Instead, we have the writer's awareness of balancing on the rim between worlds, fascinated by the experience, and wanting to record it with her usual clear-eyed curiosity.
It lies on my pillow.
Without movement or speech
Day deepens its sweetness.
Sea shanties from the water,
A brush of traffic,
But it's quiet here.
Who would have thought that pain
And weakness had such gifts
Hidden in their rough hearts?
In my ignorance, I knew Dunmore as a novelist only, and did not realize that she both began and ended her writing career as a poet. Only when seeing that this collection had won the 2017 Costa Award* did I realize my mistake. But it was an occasion to attempt a kind of Dunmore retrospective. Over the past few days, therefore, I have been looking back on all my old reviews of her novels (transferring them from Amazon), reading and reviewing her final novel, , and rereading this farewell collection.
======
Many of the poems are about the sea, and in particular the legend of Orpheus, whom she sees returning to Ithaca as "A dirty old mariner °Ú…] his toenails goat's hooves, his hair a wild nest of old stories." This comes from the title poem, "Inside the Wave," which ends:
°Ú…]Many of the poems are retrospective, thinking back to her childhood or that of her own children. So in "My Daughter As Penelope" she describes the child in some grade-school play about the Odyssey (those cultured Brits!), an image that begins almost cute but that turns into something entirely different:
The waves turned and turned
Neither toward nor away from him,
Swash and backwash
Crossing, repeating,
But never the same.
At the lip of the wave, foam
Stuttered and broke.
It was on the inside
Of the wave he chose
To meditate endlessly
Without words or song,
And so he lay down
To watch it at eye-level,
About to topple
About to be whole.
°Ú…]Not all the verse in this collection, of course, has to do with death. A few of the 44 seem somewhat random, as though picked up from some old pile to make up the number. But even these can be beautiful in their lyricism. So, for instance, "Bluebell Hollows," which refers to a place in Cornwall called Tremenheere Woods. Curious, I looked it up on Bing, and came up with a photograph that might almost have been in front of Helen Dunmore as she was writing.
My daughter as Penelope
Seven years old, thrusting
Her bare arm out of her chiton
Pushing away her suitors
As one may do in childhood.
The sheet quivered
For the dead could barely contain
Their desire for the living
And the play was long.
The cave of the stage grew vast �
A mouth without a tongue
Consuming our children.
Are they blue or not blue?
All I know is the smoke
That moves under the trees,
In Tremenheere Woods
Moths clung to the sheet,
It was the hour of innocence �
We developed flowers
On light-sensitive paper:
They are still here.
We could never walk fast enough,
Seven year olds
Up in the dead of night
Climbing to the lookout
Where bonfires blazed
For reasons long forgotten,
But perhaps because the Romans
Once came this far
To walk the bluebell hollows.
As I read, I was comparing Dunmore's collection with the one other cancer-ward testament that I have reviewed, by the Romanian poet Marin Sorescu. Sorescu is more searing in his imagery, more intellectual, more masculine. Dunmore is direct, softer, often expressing herself in those images that would occur to a woman sooner than a man. As in this poem about the simple act of arranging cut flowers:
My life’s stem was cut,Keep flowering she did, to the very end. And what it a little unevenness in standard compared to that?
But quickly, lovingly
I was lifted up,
I heard the rush of the tap
And I was set in water
In the blue vase, beautiful
In lip and curve,
And here I am
Opening one petal
As the tea cools.
I wait while the sun moves
And the bees finish their dancing.
I know I am dying
But why not keep flowering
As long as I can
From my cut stem?
======
*Two other winners of the 2017 Costa Awards are, as best novel, by Jon McGregor, which I have already reviewed, and, in the debut category, Eleanor Oliphant by Gail Honeyman, which I am enjoying now.
Read
February 21, 2018An absolutely beautiful collection that plays with water imagery, Greek mythology, and themes from The Odyssey, reflecting on the ebbing and flowing of life and on the final journey we all make. Dunmore wrote many of these when she knew she was dying (as reflected in one of the most gorgeous poems, "My life's stem was cut"), and there's a fragility to them, but they're also full of a quiet relish for the unsung lives of ordinary people. My favorite (and now an all-time favorite) was "A Loose Curl," which makes me tear up every time I read it. I didn't understand or connect to every poem (which is natural), but I had a lovely time with this collection, and highly recommend it.
August 30, 2019
Borrowed via my library's e-book service!
My first time reading Helen's poetry and sadly, Inside The Wave was her final collection of writing before her death. Going into it, I had no idea what to expect. The nature, sea and death imagery was both haunting and beautiful. A great selection of poems, some longer in length than others. I don't review poetry very often, but after this experience, I would like to do some more reading and reviewing. Will be stopping by her other collections!
My first time reading Helen's poetry and sadly, Inside The Wave was her final collection of writing before her death. Going into it, I had no idea what to expect. The nature, sea and death imagery was both haunting and beautiful. A great selection of poems, some longer in length than others. I don't review poetry very often, but after this experience, I would like to do some more reading and reviewing. Will be stopping by her other collections!
February 2, 2018
Dunmore recently won a posthumous Costa Prize for this, her final poetry collection, which meditates on the advance of death and the small blessings and everyday encounters of life. Although she’s better known for her novels, I’ve never read one; I have read three of her 10 volumes of poetry now, simply because my library system happens to hold them. Glad of These Times is overall that little bit stronger, I think; perhaps because these final poems were rushed out during Dunmore’s last months with untreatable cancer, their references are sometimes a little obvious (for instance, multiple allusions to the Odyssey, and likening her shortened life to a cut stem) and their lines ever so slightly unpolished.
There are a few standouts about being ill and sensing death’s approach � especially the final poem, with its eerie imagery of death as a flowery mother gathering the poet into her arms � but the rest are not particularly profound or fresh. Others are about the seaside (that’s Dunmore’s own photograph as the cover image), observing strangers on trains, and the boon of a shaft of sun on a sickbed pillow. I especially liked the in medias res openings of “The Underworld� and “Re-opening the old mines.�
I think these poems would work particularly well for people who don’t read or like much poetry, in that they are largely in complete sentences and the train of thought is easy to follow.
Favorite lines:
“But you can get used to anything / Like the anaesthetist / Counting to himself / Backwards, all wrong.� (from “Counting Backwards�)
“I lie and listen / And the life in me stirs like a tide / That knows when it must be gone.� (from “September Rain�)
There are a few standouts about being ill and sensing death’s approach � especially the final poem, with its eerie imagery of death as a flowery mother gathering the poet into her arms � but the rest are not particularly profound or fresh. Others are about the seaside (that’s Dunmore’s own photograph as the cover image), observing strangers on trains, and the boon of a shaft of sun on a sickbed pillow. I especially liked the in medias res openings of “The Underworld� and “Re-opening the old mines.�
I think these poems would work particularly well for people who don’t read or like much poetry, in that they are largely in complete sentences and the train of thought is easy to follow.
Favorite lines:
“But you can get used to anything / Like the anaesthetist / Counting to himself / Backwards, all wrong.� (from “Counting Backwards�)
“I lie and listen / And the life in me stirs like a tide / That knows when it must be gone.� (from “September Rain�)
April 20, 2018
A really interesting collection. The poems about her struggles with cancer were especially moving and powerful, although some of the others did pass me by.
June 17, 2018
One of the ultimate things that surfers seek is to ride inside the tube, this tunnel of water is a transitory and for surfers an almost religious experience that only lasts a few seconds in most cases. It is a place that some surfers feel most alive in, but it can be lethal too. Helen Dunmore looks at this transient line between life and death with her poems in this, her tenth and sadly final, poetry book.
In this moving collection that has themes on water, the voyage of mortality and elements of the ancient Greek classics. There are some poems that I really liked, the Lamplighter, Bluebell Hollows and Festival of Stone in particular. Hold out your arms is a poem that has been added to this collection and was written just before she passed away. As with all poetry collections, there are some in here that did nothing for me. That is the nature of poetry, each reader gets something different from the verse. Will definitely give some of her other collections a read though.
In this moving collection that has themes on water, the voyage of mortality and elements of the ancient Greek classics. There are some poems that I really liked, the Lamplighter, Bluebell Hollows and Festival of Stone in particular. Hold out your arms is a poem that has been added to this collection and was written just before she passed away. As with all poetry collections, there are some in here that did nothing for me. That is the nature of poetry, each reader gets something different from the verse. Will definitely give some of her other collections a read though.
March 27, 2018
I do feel a bit guilty only giving this three stars but, although it is Helen Dunmore's final collection of poetry written when she knew she was dying, I didn't absolutely love it. Nevertheless, it was brave and searingly honest of her to be able to write with such clarity of thought about mortality in the face of her own imminent death.
I've never really been sure quite how I feel about poetry. Sometimes I find imagery dense and confusing and difficult to unpack the meaning. It can leave me feeling not clever enough to understand. So, I was feeling cautious when I picked this up from the library, never having read any of Helen Dunmore's poetry before, only some of her novels.
To be absolutely honest, a few of the poems did fall into that category, but on the whole I found them accessible, and I liked them. Many of the poems concern illness, dying and death and are very emotive. Some are slightly more obscure, alluding to Greek mythology and I needed to look up the references to understand their meaning.
On the strength of this, I might be tempted to read some of her earlier works.
I've never really been sure quite how I feel about poetry. Sometimes I find imagery dense and confusing and difficult to unpack the meaning. It can leave me feeling not clever enough to understand. So, I was feeling cautious when I picked this up from the library, never having read any of Helen Dunmore's poetry before, only some of her novels.
To be absolutely honest, a few of the poems did fall into that category, but on the whole I found them accessible, and I liked them. Many of the poems concern illness, dying and death and are very emotive. Some are slightly more obscure, alluding to Greek mythology and I needed to look up the references to understand their meaning.
On the strength of this, I might be tempted to read some of her earlier works.
August 5, 2017
After coming across Helen Dunmore's poem, To My Nine-Year-Old Self in the Forward Poems of the Decade anthology, I decided to invest in more of her poetry. And in doing so, I've been exposed to poetry of a kind that hasn't had such an impact on me since reading Jo Shapcott's 2010 Of Mutability. Similar to Shapcott's book, Dunmore explores the tragedy of her battle with cancer - the liminal stage between life and death - and is equally powerful. An excellent collection, I particularly liked the penultimate (upon being reprinted after a second impression following Dunmore's death in June of this year) poem, September Rain.
Rhythmically, this is an outstanding tercet - the catalectic first line, the anapestic trimeter of the second to gradually, carefully develop pace, a close stirring, and the cautious resolution. Love it!
I lie and listen
And the life in me stirs like a tide
That knows when it must be gone.
Rhythmically, this is an outstanding tercet - the catalectic first line, the anapestic trimeter of the second to gradually, carefully develop pace, a close stirring, and the cautious resolution. Love it!
February 5, 2018
I bought this because it is a Costa Award winner and because I had never read anything by this author before. It was unexpected and unusual, but--and this is ultimately what I look for--very poetic. A very satisfying read.
April 17, 2018
Spoiler Alert
It's a long time since I read, I mean properly read, a small volume of poetry by an individual poet. So often it's a piecemeal thing, dipping into an anthology or a collection.... Carefully ordered by date or alphabetasized.
This slim volume is a worthy prize winner and needs to be savoured, read slowly outloud, or whispered.
I'm always mystified by people who complain they don't understand a poet's offering..... Poetry is a deeply personal form of expression, the reader shouldn't expect to be able to understand/ analyse/ interpret every allusion, association.... One must slip into the verse, listen, wonder, allow the words to touch ...here... there.... Lightly maybe but sometimes deeply, shockingly making a strong connection.
The last few poems in Helen's last book moved me to tears. Helen writes with such clarity and courage as she waits for death. She reflects with sad resonance on the company she now keeps
" My people are the dying,
I am of their company
And they are mine,
We wake in the wan hour
Between three and four,
Listen to the rain
And consider our painkillers."
But it is Helen's final reflective poem "Hold out your arms" that resonated most powerfully with me. Helen perceives and personifies death as a gentle and loving mother waiting to take her child back into her arms.
"Death stoops over me
Her long skirts slide"
This is the power of poetry...to reach out and touch our emotions..there... directly.... suddenly I get a glimpse, see the world fleetingly through the other's eyes. Helen's poem... On looking through the handle of a cup.... captures this idea this moment, this intensity of gaze.
These last poems are a great gift Helen has bequeathed us. Sometimes gifts given in love seem strange to us, barely understood. Sometimes this is because the time has not yet come for us to understand them.... Be patient.
It's a long time since I read, I mean properly read, a small volume of poetry by an individual poet. So often it's a piecemeal thing, dipping into an anthology or a collection.... Carefully ordered by date or alphabetasized.
This slim volume is a worthy prize winner and needs to be savoured, read slowly outloud, or whispered.
I'm always mystified by people who complain they don't understand a poet's offering..... Poetry is a deeply personal form of expression, the reader shouldn't expect to be able to understand/ analyse/ interpret every allusion, association.... One must slip into the verse, listen, wonder, allow the words to touch ...here... there.... Lightly maybe but sometimes deeply, shockingly making a strong connection.
The last few poems in Helen's last book moved me to tears. Helen writes with such clarity and courage as she waits for death. She reflects with sad resonance on the company she now keeps
" My people are the dying,
I am of their company
And they are mine,
We wake in the wan hour
Between three and four,
Listen to the rain
And consider our painkillers."
But it is Helen's final reflective poem "Hold out your arms" that resonated most powerfully with me. Helen perceives and personifies death as a gentle and loving mother waiting to take her child back into her arms.
"Death stoops over me
Her long skirts slide"
This is the power of poetry...to reach out and touch our emotions..there... directly.... suddenly I get a glimpse, see the world fleetingly through the other's eyes. Helen's poem... On looking through the handle of a cup.... captures this idea this moment, this intensity of gaze.
These last poems are a great gift Helen has bequeathed us. Sometimes gifts given in love seem strange to us, barely understood. Sometimes this is because the time has not yet come for us to understand them.... Be patient.
January 15, 2020
I always find reviewing poetry collections difficult - where there might be a few five star poems, there might also be ones that I just don't resonate with.
I'm just really glad that poetry is back in my life. Reading poetry before bed is such nostalgia for me, makes me feel little again - which is nice.
I'm just really glad that poetry is back in my life. Reading poetry before bed is such nostalgia for me, makes me feel little again - which is nice.
March 12, 2018
I read this for the Book Riot Read Harder Challenge task to read a book that was published posthumously. This book of poetry won the Costa Book of the Year so I thought I'd give it a go. I'm not sure it was really my cup of tea, though it definitely had moments of poignancy.
February 17, 2025
An exquisite and deeply personal set of poems that evoke a sort of borderland between life and death. These verses were written by a woman who knew she was approaching her final days. Some of the poems reach back to much earlier days, but those recollections—unlike those poems that are clearly set in the present—have a remoteness about them, almost like leafing through a photo album, the images softened, idealized; never with regret or despondency, but with tranquility, matter-of-fact contemplation.
Most poignant are final lines in the penultimate poem “September Rain�:
“I lie and listen
And the life in me stirs like a tide
That knows when it must be gone
I am on the deep deep water
Lightly held by one ankle
Out of my depth, waiting.�
I won’t quote lines from the final poem “Death hold out your arms�, it’s too wonderful; just go and read it.
Most poignant are final lines in the penultimate poem “September Rain�:
“I lie and listen
And the life in me stirs like a tide
That knows when it must be gone
I am on the deep deep water
Lightly held by one ankle
Out of my depth, waiting.�
I won’t quote lines from the final poem “Death hold out your arms�, it’s too wonderful; just go and read it.
March 14, 2018
A beautiful collection made all the more poignant as the author wrote these poems while terminally ill. Despite having passed, her words will live on in the poetry and stories she leaves behind.
I really enjoyed this collection - especially her influences from literature and Greek mythology. While not every poem was a personally hit, a few of my favourites include:
The Underworld
The shaft
Inside the wave
My life's stem was cut short
A loose curl
Terra Incognita
Rim
Ten books
Subtraction
September rain
Hold out your arms
As a side note, it also won the 2017 Costa Poetry collection and Book of the Year award if you're into those kinds of accolades!
I really enjoyed this collection - especially her influences from literature and Greek mythology. While not every poem was a personally hit, a few of my favourites include:
The Underworld
The shaft
Inside the wave
My life's stem was cut short
A loose curl
Terra Incognita
Rim
Ten books
Subtraction
September rain
Hold out your arms
As a side note, it also won the 2017 Costa Poetry collection and Book of the Year award if you're into those kinds of accolades!
February 28, 2018
Some of the poems touched me deeply, and I read them again and again. Every poem should be read twice, once out loud, and great poems must be read again and again. When I reflect on the poems in this collection I think of stillness. The last poem was written two weeks before the author died, and she wrote:
Death, hold out your arms for me
Embrace me
Give me your motherly caress,
Trough all this suffering
You have not forgotten me.
"My Life's Stem Was Cut" was the poem I liked best, a poem by a cut flower.
Death, hold out your arms for me
Embrace me
Give me your motherly caress,
Trough all this suffering
You have not forgotten me.
"My Life's Stem Was Cut" was the poem I liked best, a poem by a cut flower.
February 21, 2018
On a first read, it seems to be very two-sided, with this unusual and out of tune balance between modern images and classic echoes. Surprisingly, the book asks for a second read, and that is where the magic happens. So evocative and charming, so on point with what is going on with this crazy world that you only can let yourself go with it, to the wave.
February 2, 2018
An ethereal, mythic collection of poetry that bridges the worlds between life and death. Gave me goosebumps.
February 25, 2019
I found this to be an interesting collection of poetry that was a little bit hit and miss for me in how I reacted to each poem. There were some that really resonated with me and the language and flow was beautiful and I would happily read them over and over, but some were just a little too flat and just didn't have that same feeling with them.
All the poems dealt with the advent of death and the emotions and feelings that the finality of life evokes in people, so these topics were approached with humility and compassion and that is clear in all of them
All the poems dealt with the advent of death and the emotions and feelings that the finality of life evokes in people, so these topics were approached with humility and compassion and that is clear in all of them
June 24, 2022
Have dipped in and out of this and wanted to read this as I love Helen Dunmore. I often feel with poetry I need to read several times and let it seep into my soul so I will revisit. I found some very moving particularly as she was writing them knowing she was facing death. Others, I was not sure about to be honest but I will read around them as I want to know more.
April 24, 2022
such pretty and reflective poems - i loved all of the mythology references too
December 31, 2018
This collection really spoke to me - especially the last poem.
March 24, 2018
Beautiful, moving, sea themes with nods to greek mythology and literature. This was a quiet and oddly joyful collection that deals with grief, death and the enjoyment of ordinary life. I found much to contemplate in this slim volume that I know I will return to again and again.
March 19, 2018
Beautiful words full of poignant but glorious images. A message to us all who take life for granted and a wake up call to live each moment.
March 6, 2018
This book finished far too soon as did Helen Dunmore's career. A great book and insight into her frame of mind and emotions through her last year. Wonderful body of work and really enjoyed the read.
January 31, 2018
This author has just posthumously won the Costa award for this book of 44 poems. I read it and I find the poems are immensely beautiful. Very poignant indeed. It's about the space between life and death. It happened to her, when she was suffering of cancer and knew her death was looming. Indeed a month after publishing this poetry book she passed away in mid- 2017. I am glad I read her work. It's my first time reading this author and I already placed a hold on other books by her. Beautiful writing. Well deserved award!
February 26, 2018
Exquisitely raw and heartbreakingly beautiful all at once . I had to read and absorb each poem individually with time in between each one . Such honesty and such courage . It really is inside a wave .... loved it and will read these again and again .
October 8, 2019
This volume, Dunmore's final book, has been described as her fight with cancer book. It is much more than that and anything but the work of a Confessional poet, which is where the cancer element has led some reviewers. In the Wave is a volume about memory and how it matters to those who are about to pass over Lethe, of the stories we remember, of the seas sailed-- like Odysseus.
November 26, 2017
The first work I have read by her, and it will not be the last.
She speaks directly and clearly. Poignant but never self pitying. Accessible but never trite. Will stay with you long after
She speaks directly and clearly. Poignant but never self pitying. Accessible but never trite. Will stay with you long after
December 30, 2017
Beautiful and exquisite.
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