Helen is an Award Winning UK based poet and English co-translator of Ma Yongbo. Her work appears in International Times, Vox Populi, Ink Sweat and Tears, Open Shutter Press, Aesthetica, Orbis, and The Fenland Reed. Many of her poems have been illustrated by Graphic Artist Romit Berger.

“Let the sun come through, you’re breaking shadows across me and mine. Standing there. Staring into your selfies; you with grey seal. You with grey seal pup. We need that winter sun,..”

Excerpt from Helen’s eco-poem The Grey Seal Speaks, which was longlisted for the Rialto Nature and Place Poetry Competition 2018.

Helen has worked collaboratively on Word and Image published exclusively by Ink Sweat & Tears with graphic illustrator Romit Berger, since 2011. 

A Word & Image collection with Romit Berger your eye protects the soft-toed snowdrop, foreword by Helen Ivory, Editor, Ink, Sweat & Tears, published in hardback by Gama Poetry Press in 2022.

Her poems in the time of fires : kangaroos on the lawn, and Still life with a satsuma, published in Flora/Fauna Volume One by Open Shutter Press, Published February 2024.

Her prize winning prose poem The Laughter Of Rats is published in The Plaza Prize’s Anthology One, 2023

Helen’s eco-poem The Grey Seal Speaks was selected in 2019 for the climate change awareness anthology entitled Planet in Peril, foreword by Dr Michelle Cain, Science and Policy Research Associate, Oxford University.

Don’t try to change the course of Cuban History was selected for the anthology Poems for Peace, foreword by Benjamin Zephaniah.

Helen has two early collections Bottle bank and For the chiding dove, both published by YWO/Legend Press (supported by The Arts Council). Her poem Bottle bank was longlisted for the Bridport Poetry Prize in 2006, under Helen’s maiden name, Bannister.