In the Quaker Hotel
- 110 pages
- 4 hours of reading
This new collection from Helen Tookey is a book of questionings, exploring the present moment as a threshold between remembered past and uncertain future.
Helen Tookey Book order (chronological)
Helen Tookey explores the intricate connections between language, the body, and society, often delving into themes of identity and memory. Her writing is characterized by its rich metaphorical landscape and carefully crafted imagery, drawing readers into the heart of lived experiences. The author's approach to poetry is deeply reflective, emphasizing the investigation of hidden meanings and how our inner worlds manifest externally. Her works invite contemplation on the complexities of human existence and the capacity of language to articulate them.
Missel-Child
- 71 pages
- 3 hours of reading
According to the seventeenth-century herbarium The Garden of Eden, a ‘missel-child’ is a mysterious being found beneath a mistletoe-covered tree – a changeling, perhaps, ‘whereof many strange things are conceived’. Helen Tookey’s first full collection of poems starts from the missel-child to explore archaeologies of identity, place and language. She is a formally inventive writer, using collage and syllabics, exploring elegy and myth. The poems in this book create a space in which language enables something to be said and also to be shown.