Somehow

Helen Calcutt

• Publisher: Verve Poetry Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781912565429
• eBook ISBN: 9781912565856
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

In September 2017, Helen Calcutt's brother Matthew took his own life. He was 40 years old.

'… the phone rang / and when I answered it / you'd killed / yourself, and that was the start / of you being dead.'

This is the starting point of an astonishing new pamphlet of poems by Helen Calcutt. At times harrowing; at others hopeful – always deeply felt and beautifully realised. These poems display the poise and precision of a poet already at the height of her powers, writing the un-writable, weaving the terrible into something relatable and filled with the light of understanding.

How do we survive the tumultuous presence of grief? How does the trauma of losing a loved one to suicide affect, our identity, our creativity, and our ability to love? How – in a world shattered by incomparable change and severe loss – do we build a life from the wreckage? Because we do.

Somehow, we do.

Brother blowing

somewhere, I am

somewhere between

sleeping and waking,

                                            the whole blowing silk of our tent

                             lifting and inflating

                                                     needy as a lung.

Midnight perhaps, or not long after.

The moon has disappeared, the black

wind cries in the leaves;

the whole sky’s a blowy saint;

   the sound of trees.

My child lies asleep in the corner,

   unaware.

A storm

          is moving into our room, conductive as a hand;

   I fold my blanket over her ears, her precious head.

All around,

   the sky that lives out there

is moving in here;

our bed space swings,

the tassels knock        as coast clouds

           sent in far over the dark

                             unrest the body of our gentle room.

They’d said it would come.         It’s both sad and beautiful

to watch the light blow, watch it go with the air

                                so easy,

   then return again as easily...

I lie, I

breathe

   within thin walls

                             astounded.

          I imagine

jellyfish brains smashed over a rock—

that     we are the only light

   while our tenting soul

flaps to climb

                        high

                                                            as

                                                                                            high

                                                                                       oh, are we

anchored

                                                                just right?

         And it’s then

you drop fight

hollowed bird,

my brother blowing.

   You smile, as you enter the room,

you make breathing noises

you set down

           the two ends of your being

like cloth

you set down

              the two ends of your being

like the wings of a dove—

      you wrap the cloak of your exposure

around my eyes       strangely warm

and when the tentpoles shake        I can feel you’ve come

feel that death isn’t dark

        that the dead aren’t bright

               they just come this way when you need their light –

and I truly see you, my God. I truly feel you here.

It’s so good        to be like this

fearful, but alive

                                       alive

                                                    and so very, very

                                                                                                far

                                                                                                                  from

where you died

         oh my brother

how you’re blowing

                           in my ears and eyes.

Grief is like a miracle

like opening your mouth for water, and finding rain.

You stand for days outside the body of a silent church.

Snow touches the stillness of the windows and

you long for their acceptance, a few tears.

You tell yourself the door isn’t closed:

it’s open and weeping. Like the orange rose

that never bloomed all Spring

then one day in Autumn opened atriums of colour.

Now all the roses gather and the door

is open-armed. People think I’m strange

touching my lips to the wood, but

ice is thawing to love inside my bo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Dedication
• Now my brother has died
• Something terrible happened
• Light
• Waving, or drowning?
• A conversation with my daughter about my brother’s suicide
• Wonderful
• Found
• Bath Time
• City birds
• Sing dove
• A mountain that is your grief you can’t utter
• Rope
• Brother blowing
• Grief is like a miracle
• Wind
• The blossom tree
• About the Author
• About Verve Poetry Press