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Helen Charman
Helen Charman is a writer and academic based in Glasgow. Her first book, Mother State – a political history of motherhood — is forthcoming from Allen Lane in 2024. She teaches in the English Studies department at Durham University.

Articles Available Online


Attachment Barbies: On Watching Grey’s Anatomy

Essay

March 2023

Helen Charman

Essay

March 2023

In August 2022, ABC announced that Ellen Pompeo, currently the highest-paid actress on American network television, was leaving Grey’s Anatomy, the show on which...

Book Review

May 2021

HOLDING THE ROOM: ON HOLLY PESTER’S ‘COMIC TIMING’

Helen Charman

Book Review

May 2021

The last poem in Holly Pester’s first collection COMIC TIMING (Granta, 2021) is called ‘Villette’; it shares its title...

Stone   Stone heart Stone deep Stone minded Turn to Stone Stoned Stone I turn to stone when I’m argumentative I turn to stone when I turn chaotic My chaos is a bag of stones I turn to stone when he is on fire I will coat this in stones  I turn   I stone                I roll my stone              I palm my stone         I serve my stone   The stage has been set This set has been staged This set has been stoned by the stony-hearted I am of the stony-hearted I am heart-stone I think the words I am looking for are ‘spite’ and ‘malice’ No, you are stone-cold You are the breaker of stones You, stonecutter You cut the head of my stone, but not my heart Try to touch this Touchstone Touch the touchstone of my want   Of my feast        Of my safety               Of my dark               Of my light             Of my truth   Of my false                 Of my tierce                Of my salt                   Of my sweet   Your slaughter is in flame and slaughter is close to water, is close to laughter, is close to aught I ought to be real here I ought to think again I ought to stammer this home in stones Splint in stones Sprint in stones Glint in stones, but not gravel, not grovel Not pebbled in fear Here’s an interesting question I mean the universe of language is designed to be a stone’s throw from possible, right? A stone’s throw from able Wait Didn’t Abel stone Cain? Didn’t Abel kill his brother? They were family They were blood Use your words Keep your heart stony Create a mouth from your eye, an eye from your mouth  Use your stone heart has a harness Use your eye as a hand  All of you will have to leave something to someone     Gasp   Step into This suffering It is a stroke away from Light It is a stroke away from Horror This claim Is a forward regime Step into This smouldering Step into The smoudler Carry Relief Carry Resistance Carry Tragedy Carry This tragedy Step into The gash Step into His hubris This is not

Contributor

November 2017

Helen Charman

Contributor

November 2017

Helen Charman is a writer and academic based in Glasgow. Her first book, Mother State – a political history...

Essay

May 2020

Where do I put myself, if public life’s destroyed? On reading Denise Riley

Helen Charman

Essay

May 2020

How do you read someone who doesn’t always want to be read? This is a question I used to...

Sally Rooney’s ‘Normal People’

Book Review

October 2018

Helen Charman

Book Review

October 2018

Reading Sally Rooney’s second novel Normal People is a compulsive experience. After the navy blue Faber & Faber proofs were sent out in early...
Rendering intimacy impossible, deploy lifeboats (mark yourself safe) Not listening as such, more waiting to speak, above all mark yourself, it’s so important to be safe Carry on, they demand, we’re not reeling / we are reeling Is this the place for a fountain reference? Probably ‘What first attracted you to your wife, sir?’ ‘Her delicacy / her ankles / her hatred of the Tories’                  Alive twice over but that’s a whole life gone too                you know I’m sorry, he holds his hands up, I’m                sorry, he backs away: my conscience couldn’t                keep company with your body I say, your body?                it just made me think: it’s only a nine month stay   The next time you lay a hand on me, I’ll make a perfect gleaming dive into the Thames Aren’t you glad / to be here? I am
Electioneering

Prize Entry

November 2017

Helen Charman


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Prize Entry

April 2017

Pylons

David Isaacs

Prize Entry

April 2017

Once upon a time, Dad would begin, I think, focusing on the road, there was a man called Watt....

fiction

January 2017

Oh You

Keller Easterling

fiction

January 2017

You won’t be able to do it. It is a call, and it is something you only know how...

Art

November 2012

Pending performance: Cally Spooner’s live production

Isabella Maidment

Art

November 2012

It’s 1957 and the press release still isn’t written[1] An actress dressed in black overalls stands on a theatrically...

 

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