Inside the Wave

by Helen Dunmore

Overview

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 poetry book, was her first since The Malarkey (2012), whose title-poem won the National Poetry Competition. Her final poem, 'Hold out your arms', written shortly before her death and not included in the first printing of Inside the Wave, was added to all subsequent printings. Her posthumous retrospective, Counting Backwards: Poems 1975-2017 (2019), covers ten collections she published over four decades up to and including Inside the Wave.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781780373584
Publisher:	Bloodaxe Books
Publication date:	04/27/2017
Pages:	72
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.30(d)

About the Author

Helen Dunmore (1952-2017) was a poet, novelist, short story and children’s writer. Her poetry books received a Poetry Book Society Choice and Recommendations, the Alice Hunt Bartlett Award, and the Signal Poetry Award. Bestiary was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize in 1997. Inside the Wave won the 2017 Costa Poetry Award and went on to be named Costa Book of the Year. She won first prize in the Cardiff International Poetry Competition in 1990 with her poem ‘Sisters leaving the dance’, and first prize in the National Poetry Competition in 2010 with ‘The Malarkey’. After making her debut with The Apple Fall in 1983, she published all her poetry with Bloodaxe. Her earlier work was collected in Out of the Blue: Poems 1975-2001 (2001), which was followed by Glad of These Times (2007), The Malarkey (2012), and Inside the Wave (2017), her tenth and final collection. A new retrospective, Counting Backwards: Poems 1975-2017, was published by Bloodaxe in 2019. She published twelve novels and three books of short stories with Penguin, including A Spell of Winter (1995), winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction, Talking to the Dead (1996), The Siege (2001), Mourning Ruby (2003), House of Orphans (2006) and The Betrayal (2010), as well as The Greatcoat (2012) with Hammer, and The Lie (2014), Exposure (2016) and Birdcage Walk (2017) with Hutchinson. A posthumous story collection, Girl, Balancing and Other Stories, followed from Hutchinson in 2018. Born in Beverley, Yorkshire, she studied English at York University, and after graduating in 1973 spent two years teaching in Finland before settling in Bristol.

Table of Contents

Counting Backwards 11

The Underworld 12

Shutting the Gate 13

In Praise of the Piano 14

Re-opening the old mines 15

Inside the Wave 16

Odysseus to Elpenor 18

Plane tree outside Ward 78 20

The shaft 21

Leave the door open 22

My life's stem was cut 23

The Bare Leg 24

The Place of Ordinary Souls 26

My daughter as Penelope 27

The Lamplighter 29

The Halt 30

Bluebell Hollows 31

A Loose Curl 32

Hornsea, 1952 33

Festival of stone 35

A Bit of Love 36

Winter Balcony with Dunnocks 37

Mimosa 38

Nightfall in the IKEA Kitchen 39

The Duration 41

At the Spit 43

Terra Incognita 44

Four cormorants, one swan 45

Girl in the Blue Pool 46

February 12th 1994 47

What shall I do for my sister in the day she shall be spoken for? 48

In Secret 49

All the breaths of your life 50

Her children look for her 51

Little papoose 52

Cliffs of Fall 53

Five Versions from Catullus 54

1 Through Babel of Nations 54

2 Undone 55

3 Sirmio 56

4 Dedication 57

5 Sparrow 58

Rim 59

On looking Through the handle of a cup 60

Ten Books 61

Subtraction 63

My people 64

September Rain 65

Hold out your arms 69

Editorial Reviews

We all felt this is a modern classic; a fantastic collection, life-affirming and uplifting. The poems carry powerful messages that speak to all of us.' - Wendy Holden , Chair of Judges, Costa Book of the Year 2017

From the Publisher