Helen Tookey grew up in Leicestershire and now lives in Liverpool. She studied English and philosophy at university, went on to work in publishing and began to write and publish poetry in her early 30s. Her first short collection, Telling the Fractures (2008), was a collaboration with photographer Alan Ward.
Her first full-length collection, Missel-Child, was published by Carcanet in 2014 and shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Centre prize (2015).
She likes to explore ways of combining poetry with other art forms, and has collaborated with poet/artist Patricia Farrell on an illustrated collage-sequence, Twenty-Five Views of Japan (shown at Bank Street Arts in Sheffield) and with musician Sharron Kraus on a CD, If You Put Out Your Hand (Wounded Wolf Press, 2016).
She’s currently working with musician Martin Heslop to create sound pieces based on some of the new poems from In the Glasshouse.
Helen teaches creative writing at Liverpool John Moores University.
Publications
- In the Glasshouse (HappenStance Press, 2016)
- If You Put Out Your Hand (CD, with Sharron Kraus, Wounded Wolf Press, 2016)
- New Poetries VI (co-edited with Michael Schmidt, Carcanet, 2015)
- Missel-Child (Carcanet, 2014)
- Malcolm Lowry: From the Mersey to the World (co-edited with Bryan Biggs, Liverpool University Press, 2009)
- Telling the Fractures (Axis Projects, 2008)
Links
- Helen's website
- Poems in the Manchester Review
- Twitter: @htookey1