Feeling All the Kills

Feeling All the Kills is a dazzling new collection that breaks the poet’s silence on what it means to experience and live in the wake of a violent assault and rape. Calcutt weaves stunning musicality with raw, unhindered storytelling, as the poems both collectively, and in their individual power, explore the distinctly connected, yet fractured selves of ’sexual being’, ’mother’ and ’abused person’. Through the poems’ breathtaking and vital vocabulary Calcutt brings the physical, emotional, and sexual nuances of life to the foreground, with strength, subtlety and beauty, and courageously harnesses a sense of ownership over such a lasting trauma. At the heart of this collection is a personal desire to navigate a way back to a sensual, whole-feeling self, to shamelessly ’feel all’ -- with authenticity and power.

Helen Calcutt is a poet, dance artist and choreographer based in Birmingham. Her pamphlet ’Somehow’ (Verve Poetry Press 2020) was a PBS Winter Bulletin Pamphlet, and Poetry School Book of the Year (longlist, 2020). Her highly acclaimed anthology, ’Eighty-Four’ (Verve, 2019) created in aid of the suicide prevention charity CALM, was a Saboteur Award shortlist, and a Poetry Wales Book of the Year (2019). Her writing has been published extensively in journals and magazines, including the Guardian, the Huffington Post, Poetry London, Poetry Wales, Poetry Ireland, Wild Court and many others. She was one of six poets selected to perform as part of the Commonwealth Games Opening Ceremony 2022, broadcast live to over one billion people around the world. Helen was awarded an honorary doctorate by Loughborough University in December 2023 for her ’outstanding contribution to creative writing and work in raising awareness of issues related to social inclusivity’. She is Artistic Director of ’Beyond Words’, a ground-breaking new company exploring text-to-movement translation.