The Underlook

The Underlook balances precariously between the real and the surreal. Informed by experiences of physical disability, surgery, and medical trauma, this collection articulates a life lived under the bed, at the bottom of a well, in the glances exchanged between doctors. The poems revel in the uncanny and in the power of ignored or repressed spaces, summoning us under to ‘listen … crouch down … press [a] hand against the white gloss shuddering’.

Author Biography

Helen Seymour is a disabled writer and performer. She won gold in the Creative Futures Literary Awards (2017), was longlisted for the Outspoken Poetry Prize (2018), and was shortlisted for the Jerwood Poetry Fellowship (2019). She is published in The Emma Press Anthology of Illness (2020) and is frequently commissioned by such organisations as Apples and Snakes and DadaFest. Helen has written and performed two spoken word theatre shows, directed by Hannah Silva: To Helen Back toured nationally, exploring sickness, health and what it really means to recover; Helen Highwater focused on dating, disability and intrusive thoughts and premiered as part of London Literature Festival at the Southbank Centre in 2019.