Helen Calcutt


Helen Calcutt, is a British poet, writer, dancer, and choreographer.

Writing career

Calcutt is the author of three volumes of poetry. 'Sudden rainfall' was published by British publishing house 'Perdika Press' when she was just 23 years old. It 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. Her third collection 'Somehow' will be published by Verve Press in [September 2020.
Helen also writes for the Guardian, the Huffington Post, Poetry London, and the Wales Arts Review.

Dance

Calcutt is also a professional dancer and choreographer. She has directed movement for theatre, site-specific productions, and independent film, working with a specialism in the conversation between text and movement.
Helen originally trained in jazz and commercial dance, before studying contemporary movement at Trinity Laban, and later moving into dance-theatre and movement direction. She is also a Latin and dancer.

Activism

Calcutt is an activist for mental health awareness, and male suicide prevention. She is the creator and editor of the acclaimed poetry anthology, 'Eighty Four' 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 was shortlisted for the Saboteur Best Anthology Award, 2019, and was a Poetry Wales Book of The Year 2019.
Helen lost her own brother to suicide in September 2017.
Helen also works for Europe Must Act, a social movement demanding new and humane migration policies for refugees and asylum seekers.