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Helen Farish

The Penny Dropping

Helen Farish

Publication Date : 25 Apr 2024

ISBN: 9781852249960

Pages: 65
Size :216 x 138mm
Rights: World

Shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize 2024

The Penny Dropping offers an account of a cherished relationship from first meeting to eventual break-up. Distance gives the writer a retrospective clarity from which she does not flinch despite its challenges (‘Look at me,’ laments the speaker in ‘Pretty Woman’, ‘stepping back into the dress, / pulling up the side zip, smoothing it down, / as though that’s all it took.’).

But ultimately poems such as ‘No Point Now’ undo their own argument that the penny has dropped years too late, for the process of re-evaluating the past bestows on it a new and altered value. In ‘Films We Saw at The Phoenix’, the speaker recalls the lovers in one film whose relationship is also at an end, but who look back and ‘spread it out tenderly, the tapestry / of their love which they alone could see'. The immediate power of these poems is such that much is at stake on every page.

Helen Farish’s debut collection Intimates (Cape, 2005), a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, won the Forward Prize for Best First Collection and was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize.

‘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 

‘I’d strongly recommend Helen Farish’s wonderful new narrative-driven collection, The Penny Dropping. These often exquisitely lyrical poems are intimate and personal, tracing the course of a close relationship and holding your attention throughout.’ – Will Mackie, New & Recent Poetry from the North: Summer 2024

'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

'The Penny Dropping, Helen Farish’s verse-sequence about a love relationship, could be called a page-turner if it weren’t for the fact that every page is a lyric poem of such compulsion that it unfailingly and hauntingly detains the reader’s attention. As a whole, it has all the coherence of a novel; but there is so much more to this beautifully realised lyric collection of the kind that she is a recognised master of. It is a masterpiece in both forms to a very unusual degree.' – Bernard O'Donoghue

Helen Farish reads her title-poem, ‘The Penny Dropping’, in the T.S. Eliot Prize video series featuring the poets with books shortlisted for 2024.

Helen Farish reads her poem, ‘Snow on the Road to Naoussa’ from The Penny Dropping, in the T.S. Eliot Prize video series featuring the poets with books shortlisted for 2024.

Helen Farish reads her poem, ‘The Waste Land’ from The Penny Dropping, in the T.S. Eliot Prize video series featuring the poets with books shortlisted for 2024.

Helen Farish talks about her collection The Penny Dropping in the T.S. Eliot Prize video series featuring the poets with books shortlisted for 2024.

 

Ireland & EU: Click here to order from Books Upstairs in Dublin

USA: Click here to order from Indiebound or Bookshop.org

  

BOOKS BY Helen Farish

Nocturnes at Nohant

Helen Farish

Nocturnes at Nohant

The Decade of Chopin and Sand

Publication Date : 28 Jun 2012

Read More   amazon.co.uk
The Dog of Memory

Helen Farish

The Dog of Memory

Publication Date : 29 Sep 2016

Read More   amazon.co.uk

Related News & Publicity

News & Publicity


Katrina Porteous & Helen Farish shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize 2024

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Poets Katrina Porteous and Helen Farish shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize 2024 for their fourth collections Rhizodont & The Penny Dropping. Helen featured in the TS...

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Helen Farish's fourth collection The Penny Dropping is shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize 2024: Prize readings in London on 12 January 2025. Her joint online launch...

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Ellen Cranitch, Helen Farish & Brenda Shaughnessy launched their April 2024 poetry books with a reading on our YouTube channel. Available to watch now.

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