A Field Guide to Wedding Guests
Helen Reid
Published by Poet’s House Pamphlets, November 2021, £7.00
Helen Reid is a poet, carer and environmental campaigner. Her work has appeared in various magazines and journals including IOTA and Mslexia Magazine. In 2019 she was a winner in the international Blue Nib Chapbook competition. She studied Italian in Glasgow, has moved between Scotland and England throughout her life, but currently lives in Oxford. Her poetry explores the absurd in the ordinary.
‘This debut pamphlet from Helen Reid is a little box of delights, showing something new and surprising on each page. From an ex-wife’s skin cells, to an urban fox, to a bored angel who lets a lucky little hominid root around on top, all punctuated by the sharply observed ‘Field Guide to Wedding Guests’. Reid’s imagery is precise and her language sparks with energy so that this reader could feel the Silkie’s distant rushing joy.’ Angela France
‘Hearing these poems in my head, the music of the iamb was evident. Tiny details, vividly evoked … made me fall hard.’ Audrey Malloy, Judge of the Blue Nib Chapbook 6 Competition
‘A collection of keenly observed poems that show a wicked insight into the most familiar of life’s great milestones. It moves and amuses.’ Iszi Lawrence, BBC Radio 4 presenter, novelist and stand-up.
https://jennylewis.org.uk/2021/12/17/launch-of-a-field-guide-to-wedding-guests/