Helen Farish Readings
'Helen Farish’s The Penny Dropping is an unflinching and gripping account of the arc and aftermath of a failed relationship. Taking its epigraph from The Waste Land, ‘Shall I at least set my lands in order?’, it is also a virtuosic interrogation of the relationship between lyric and narrative time. Rather than shaping 52 short poems into one long elegiac sequence, Farish keeps alive the immediacy of the vanished present by meticulous relocation of ‘you’ and ‘I’ in space and time. Beginning in Morocco in the 1980s [...] and ending with the relationship’s enduring prompts in the present [...] The Penny Dropping is the best love poem anyone has written in years.' – Mimi Khalvati, Anthony Joseph and Hannah Sullivan, TS Eliot Prize 2024 Judges – TS Eliot Prize Judges' comment
‘Memory is fragile. As we cultivate and reinforce it, we create a myth which interacts with the details of daily life, transforming it into one huge shrine. The candour and courage of The Penny Dropping should not be underestimated. This is confessional poetry of the highest order.’ – John Field, TS Eliot Prize reviewer
Helen Farish is the author of four books of poems, Intimates (Cape, 2005), Nocturnes at Nohant: The Decade of Chopin and Sand (Bloodaxe Books, 2012), The Dog of Memory (Bloodaxe Books, 2016) and The Penny Dropping (Bloodaxe Books, 2024). Intimates, a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, won the Forward Prize for Best First Collection and was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize. The Dog of Memory was shortlisted for the Lakeland Book of the Year 2017.
Her fourth collection The Penny Dropping is a book-length verse sequence that charts the course of a cherished relationship from first meeting to eventual break-up and beyond. It was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize 2024. Scroll down to watch videos of Helen Farish reading from and talking about her shortlisted collection.
Helen Farish was the subject of the TS Eliot Prize e-newsletter of 31 October 2024. With links to an excellent review by John Field, to Readers’ Notes and to videos of Helen reading from and talking about her shortlisted collection The Penny Dropping. Read the newsletter here.
Helen's piece for the Poetry School's TS Eliot Prize Writers' Notes series is here.
'I set myself the goal of a book-length narrative and having this goal both drove me on and made the writing experience feel wonderfully expansive. I had the space to follow where the poems wanted to go.' – Helen Farish, TS Eliot Prize Writers' Notes, on her shortlisted collection The Penny Dropping
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'This themed book reflects upon a past love affair, taking us from inception to end, and what comes next. There is regret, rueful anger, a sense of loss and longing, together with a genuine feeling of tender gratitude for having experienced so intense a relationship in all its moods. What is fascinating is that these poems show such energy and luminosity from emotions first felt over 30 years ago. [...] A remarkable collection from an excellent poet.' – David Harmer, Orbis, on The Penny Dropping
‘I savoured Helen Farish’s tracing of the break-up over time of a loved relationship in The Penny Dropping. Each of the intimate, single-stanza poems acts as a window in this gripping, elegantly achieved, and ultimately very poignant book.’ – Moniza Alvi, The Poetry Society (Books of the Year)
'The Penny Dropping, Helen Farish’s fourth collection, comprises sixty-seven poems, each written in the first person. It tells the story of a significant relationship from thirty years ago – a relationship which, despite its eventual breakdown, is recalled without bitterness. Instead, there’s a complex mix of emotions – love, passion, tenderness and gratitude, as well as heartache, guilt, regret and much besides. She goes deep, and this review can’t do justice to the subtlety of feeling that reveals itself over several readings. It’s a very personal story but it makes universal connections. On the surface the poems read straightforwardly. There’s a fluidity and elegance to the writing that carries you along so easily you don’t notice how good it is. [...] “The true subject of poetry is the loss of the beloved,” said Faiz Ahmed Faiz. It’s a good and true subject for Helen Farish too. She handles it beautifully.' – Annie Fisher, The Friday Poem
Read the full review on TFP's substack here.
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PAST EVENTS
Sunday 12 January 2025, 7pm, TS Eliot Prize Shortlist Readings, London
Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London, SE1 8XX
Poets shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize 2024 were invited to read from their shortlisted collections at London's Royal Festival Hall on 12 January 2025. The event was hosted by poet and broadcaster Ian McMillan. Bloodaxe poets Katrina Porteous and Helen Farish were shortlisted for their fourth collections Rhizodont and The Penny Dropping.
An audio recording is available. Katrina is introduced at 6:00 and Helen at 1:00:10. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NumboDkFRHk
Extracts from the readings were broadcast on BBC Radio 4's The Verb on Sunday 19 January 2025 at 5.10pm. Listen via BBC Sounds here. Helen features from 4:03.
T S ELIOT PRIZE VIDEOS
Helen Farish reads 'Snow on the Road to Naoussa' from The Penny Dropping
Helen Farish talks about her work
TS ELIOT PRIZE YOUNG CRITIC VIDEO REVIEW
TS Eliot Prize Young Critics video review, online 9 December 2024
Sylvie Jane Lewis reviewed Helen Farish's The Penny Dropping. An excellent and thoughtful in-depth review by Poetry Society and TS Eliot Prize Young Critic Sylvie Jane Lewis.
‘In speaking to the ghost of love through the language of immediacy, Farish resurrects the past for a moment, then lets it go.’ – Sylvie Jane Lewis, TS Eliot Prize Young Critic
PAST EVENTS
ONLINE LAUNCH READING, 30 APRIL 2024
Helen launched The Penny Dropping online at Bloodaxe’s joint live-streamed reading and discussion event on 30 April 2024, together with Ellen Cranitch and Okinawan-Irish American poet Brenda Shaughnessy. Available to watch now via YouTube below or here.
[02 October 2024]
