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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...

She-dog   He wrote to tell me his dog had died I wanted to be her, I wanted him to cry for me, to hug me I fall I stretch my legs The detachment of the spirit is like a sedative Life slips away in a succession of images Streets Nights The danger of passing cars Before dying, the stars give out their last glitter to the puddles     La perra   Me escribió para decirme que su perra murió Quise ser su perra para que me llore y abrace Caigo Extiendo las patas El desprendimiento del espíritu como un calmante La vida se escurre en una sucesión de imágenes Calles Noches El peligro de los autos Antes de morir, las estrellas entregan su último resplandor a los charcos     Wrong   Today I dreamt I dialed any number and you answered I told you I was naked and that someone was after me You told me to hang up, and that nobody would get hold of me You are getting older in my dreams, the snow colours your hair white You are staring at the tired body of a rat unable to make its way through the ice You don’t know whether to push it towards the flakes of death or towards the coffins of snow     Equivocado   Hoy soñé que marcaba un teléfono cualquiera y me atendías Te dije que estaba desnuda y que alguien corría tras de mí Me respondiste que colgara, y que nadie debía alcanzarme Estás envejeciendo en mis sueños, la nieve te dibuja canas Mirás el cuerpo cansado de una rata que no puede hacer camino a través del hielo No sabés si patearla hacia los copos de la muerte o hacia los ataúdes de la nieve

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


READ NEXT

feature

May 2011

Short Cuts

Charles Boyle

feature

May 2011

1.. Whatever it is that the literature department of Arts Council England (ACE) is for, it can’t be for...

fiction

January 2014

The Dispossessed

Szilárd Borbély

TR. Ottilie Mulzet

fiction

January 2014

The Dispossessed is Szilárd Borbély’s first novel, although he has been active – and widely acclaimed – as a poet,...

Prize Entry

April 2015

How things are falling.

David Isaacs

Prize Entry

April 2015

i.   Oyster cards were first issued to members of the British public in July 2003; by June 2015...

 

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