by Helen Ivory | May 18, 2025 | Featured, Prose
What Happens After the Aftershock? In February 2024, I took an Uber to a bridge in London. I was planning to die. Instead, I got out and walked to St Paul’s, where I was detained and sectioned. I remember the shame. The dizziness. I remember thinking I’d...
by Helen Ivory | May 17, 2025 | Featured, Poetry
This poem was sparked by my own care experience and more recent indirect involvement. The poem itself does not require analysis, beyond what lay behind me writing it. Two years ago I was invited by Lemn Sissay to be part of a feature in The Observer at the...
by Helen Ivory | May 16, 2025 | Featured, Poetry
You Ask Me if I’ve Had a Nice Day Are these the words you want me to say about how my day became a raging river crashing through my bones? Its giant stones thumped my body like the fall of a hammer. Does that terrify you? Have you managed a day...
by Helen Ivory | May 15, 2025 | Featured, Poetry, Word & Image
We understand that some of you are having difficulty seeing the image properly. Try right clicking and saving it or opening in a new tab. Commentary: This poem is different from my usual visual work, which has several constellations or voices, and...
by Helen Ivory | May 14, 2025 | Featured, Poetry
Living Flashback My room is infested with bedbugs I’m covered in bites, not love bites I have to spend the night on the low secure unit That I’ve only just been discharged from. The paranoid nurse who signs me in thinks I’ve been...
by Helen Ivory | May 13, 2025 | Featured, Prose
Why Words Help Let’s accept then (whether you accept this premise or not) that all psychological well-being rests on our capacity to assemble a narrative that situates our experiences within a landscape that makes sense. When our lives begin as disparate...
