Helena Nelson’s first collection, Starlight on Water (Rialto, 2003) was joint winner of the Aldeburgh Jerwood Prize. Her second book-length volume, Plot and Counter-Plot (Shoestring Press, 2010) is sadder, thinner and blurb-less. The cover design is fabulous.
The Size of Grief
Day one. Small. Stunned.
Day two, almost new.
A daze of days.
Then it’s three hundred
and sixty five
and it’s alive.
They speak of
‘getting over it’, they talk of
‘getting through’
as if you could do
that. It is impassable
and simple as a leaf.
One side is black and it is grief.
The other (the green side) is love.
Helena Nelson
(From Plot and Counter-Plot. Listen on SoundCloud.)