Rim -- 5. Counting Backwards -- The Underworld -- Shutting the Gate -- In Praise of the Piano -- Re-opening the old mines -- Inside the Wave -- Odysseus to Elpenor -- Plane tree outside Ward 78 -- The shaft -- Leave the door open -- My life's stem was cut -- The Bare Leg -- The Place of Ordinary Souls -- My daughter as Penelope -- The Lamplighter -- The Halt -- Bluebell Hollows -- A Loose Curl -- Hornsea 1952 -- Festival of stone -- A Bit of Love -- Winter Balcony with Dunnocks -- Mimosa -- Nightfall in the IKEA Kitchen -- The Duration -- At the Spit -- Terra Incognita -- Four cormorants, one swan -- Girl in the Blue Pool -- February 12th 1994 -- What shall I do for my sister in the day she shall be spoken for? -- In Secret -- All the breaths of your life -- Her children look for her -- Little papoose -- Cliffs of Fall -- Five Versions from Catullus. 1. Through Babel of Na tions ; 2. Undone ; 3. Sirmio ; 4. Dedication ; 5. Sparrow -- Rim -- The Overcoat -- Ten Books -- Subtraction -- My people -- September Rain -- Hold out your arms -- The Malarkey (2012). The Malarkey -- Come Out Now -- The Inbox -- Boatman -- I Owned a Woman Once -- Longman English Series -- Writ in Water -- Dis -- Newgate -- At Ease -- Harbinger -- The Hyacinths -- The Night Workers -- Agapanthus above Porthmeor -- Visible and Invisible -- The Snowfield -- Lemon tree in November -- Bildad -- Skulking -- Basement at Eighteen Folgate Street -- Barclays Bank, St Ives -- Playing Her Pieces -- Pianist, 103 -- The Torn Ship -- Taken in Shadows -- Prince Felipe Prospero (1657-1661) -- Picture Messages -- Lethe -- The Queue's Essentially -- The Captainess of Laundry -- The Day's Umbrellas -- The Deciphering -- The Tarn -- The Gift -- What Will You Say -- Cloud -- I Have Been Thinking of You So Loudly -- The Kingdom of the Dead -- The Last Heartbeat -- The Old Mastery -- The Overcoat -- Hearing owls -- I Heard You Sing in the Dark -- La Recouvrance -- The Filament -- Glad of These Times (2007). City lilacs -- Crossing the field -- Litany -- Don't count John among the dreams -- The other side of the sky's dark room -- Convolvulus -- The grey Iilo -- Yellow butterflies -- Plume -- Odysseus -- The blue garden -- Violets -- The rowan -- Barnoon -- Getting into the car -- Glad of these times -- Off-script -- `Indeed we are all made from the dust of stars' -- Tulip -- Beautiful today the -- Dead gull on Porthmeor -- Narcissi -- Dolphins whistling -- Borrowed light -- A winter imagination -- Athletes -- Pneumonia -- Wall is the book -- Gorse -- Blackberries after Michaelmas -- To my nine-year-old self -- Fallen angel -- Bridal -- Still life with ironing -- Spanish Irish -- Cowboys -- Below Hungerford Bridge -- Ophelia -- Winter bonfire -- One A.M. -- Lemon and stars -- Cutting open the lemons -- Hearing owls -- Sometimes in the rough garden of city spaces -- May voyage -- Out of the Blue (2001). Out of the Blue -- The man on the roof -- Giraffes in Hull -- Jacob's drum -- That old cinema of memory -- Depot -- A lorry-load of stuff -- Virgin with Two Cardigans -- Ice coming -- Cyclamen, blood-red -- Piers Plowman: The Crucifixion & Harrowing of Hell -- Smoke -- Bristol Docks -- The spill -- Without remission -- The rain's coming in -- As good as it gets -- If only -- Mr Lear's ring -- Fortune-teller on Church Road -- Sleeveless -- The point of not returning -- The form -- The sentence -- With short, harsh breaths -- The footfall -- The coffin-makers -- Inside out -- The blessing -- From Bestiary (1997). Candle poem -- At the Emporium -- Next door -- He lived next door all his life -- Under the leaves* -- The surgeon husband -- Fishing beyond sunset -- Hare in the snow -- Need -- Sometimes in the rough garden of city spaces -- The Diving Reflex -- The scattering -- All the things you are not yet -- Ferns on a hospital window* -- Diving girl -- A pretty shape -- Viking cat in the dark -- Baby sleep -- Frostbite -- Basketball player on Pentecost Monday -- Tiger lookout -- Tiger Moth caterpillar -- Hungry Thames -- The wasp -- On growing a black tulip* -- Little Ellie and the timeshare salesman -- Bouncing boy -- Ghost at noon -- Greek beads -- Tea at Brandt's -- We are men, not beasts -- From Recovering a Body (1994). To Virgil -- Three Ways of Recovering a Body -- Holiday to Lonely -- Poem in a Hotel -- The Bike Lane -- Drink and the Devil -- Ahvenanmaa -- Rubbing Down the Horse -- You came back to life in its sweetness -- Heimat -- In the Desert Knowing Nothing -- Poem on the Obliteration of 100,000 Iraqi Soldiers -- The Yellow Sky -- Getting the Strap -- Adders -- The conception -- Scan at 8 weeks -- Pedalo -- Beetroot Soup -- The Diving Reflex -- Winter 1955 -- Boys on the Top Board -- Sylvette Scrubbing -- Babes in the Wood -- Cajun -- Then I think how the train* -- Skips -- Time by Accurist -- The Silent Man in Waterstones -- The Wardrobe Mistress -- When You've Got -- Afterword* -- From Secrets (1994). Lemon sole -- Christmas caves -- That violet-haired lady -- Whooper swans -- Snow Queen -- The cuckoo game -- The butcher's daughter -- The greenfield ghost -- Herring girl -- Russian doll -- Breeze of ghosts -- From Short Days, Long Nights (1991). Those shady girls -- The dream-life of priests -- Sisters leaving before the dance -- On not writing certain poems -- Privacy of rain -- Dancing man -- At Cabourg II -- Baron Hardup -- Nearly May Day -- Three workmen with blue pails -- Brown coal -- Safe period -- Big barbershop man -- The dry well -- Our family, swimming again* -- Sweet pepper* -- Heron -- One yellow chicken -- Sailing to Cuba -- Off the West Pier -- Winter 1955 -- Christmas roses -- In Berber's Ice Cream Parlour -- On drinking lime juice in September* -- Not going to the forest -- Lutherans -- From The Raw Garden (1988). Code-breaking in the Garden of Eden -- Seal run -- Wild strawberries -- A mortgage on a pear tree -- A peony truss on Sussex place -- Permafrost -- At Cabourg -- Ploughing the roughlands -- The land pensions -- A dream of wool -- New crops -- Shadows of my mother against a wall -- Air layering -- The argument -- The peach house -- A meditation of the glasshouses -- The haunting of Epworth -- Preaching at Gwennap -- On circuit from Heptonstall Chapel -- US 1st Division Airborne Ranger at rest in Honduras -- One more for the beautiful table -- Lambkin -- Dublin 1971 -- The hard-hearted husband -- Malta -- Candlemas -- Pilgrims -- An Irish miner in Staffordshire -- From The Sea Skater (1986). The bride's nights in a strange village -- Lazarus* -- Christmas roses -- Grcenham Common -- The knight* -- In memoriam Cyril Smith 1913-1945 -- The parachute packers -- Porpoise washed up on the beach -- In deep water -- Lady Macduff and the primroses -- Mary Shelley -- The plum tree -- The air-blue gown -- My sad descendants -- Patrick at four years old on Bonfire Night -- The horse landscape -- Thetis -- In the tents -- Uncle Will's telegram -- Rapunzel -- Bewick's swans* -- The sea skater -- In the tea house -- Florence in permafrost -- Missile launcher passing at night -- From The Apple Fall (1983). The marshalling yard -- A cow here in the June meadow -- Zelda -- Annunciation off East Street* -- The Polish husband -- The damson -- In Rodmell Garden -- The apple fall -- Pictures of a Chinese nursery* -- Pharaoh's daughter -- Domestic poem -- Patrick I -- Patrick II -- Weaning -- Clinic day* -- Approaches to winter -- The night chemist -- St Paul's -- Poem for December 28 -- Grcenham Common -- Breakfast. If no revolution come -- A safe light -- Near Dawlish -- The last day of the exhausted month -- Second marriages* -- The deserted table -- The writer's son -- Ollie and Charles at St Andrew's Park -- Winter fairs -- In a wood near Turku -- Landscape from the Monet Exhibition at Cardiff -- Breakfast.
Summary:
Counting Backwards is a retrospective covering ten collections written over four decades, bringing together all the poems Helen Dunmore included in her earlier selection, Out of the Blue (2001), with all those from her three later collections, Glad of These Times (2007), The Malarkey (2012) and Inside the Wave (2017), along with a number of earlier or previously uncollected poems.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.