Helen Nicholson lives in Fife, after many years in London, where she was a founder member of the Magma team. Some of her poems celebrate her Scottish west coast background. Others draw on her earlier life experience as a child with a stammer. The stammer has allegedly left her, though not its memory.
She writes with wit and charm, as well as acute sensitivity to language—its enchantment and its dangers.
THIS ROOM
So after all that, after all,
that is my job. I know it now.
I’d thought it in the next room
but one. Always a door ajar,
a calling breeze. But now I know
it’s here—as shiny, lush and green
as that ground elder anointed with rain.
Some leaves have a mirror sheen.
Others stare, mottled, but not the dull
I’d made them. So, that’s my job:
this small room, this window view.
This shiver of cold.