Helen Bowell

Poet / Producer / Facilitator / Mentor

Hello! I'm Helen, a London-based writer. Alongside writing, I facilitate workshops with adults and young people, produce events, run learning programmes, offer mentoring and more. My debut pamphlet The Barman was published by Bad Betty Press in 2022, and was selected as the Poetry Book Society Summer 2022 Pamphlet Choice. I'm interested in language(s), in-betweenness, queerness, collaboration, medieval legends and the surreal. I also play the cello! If you have any projects, get in touch.

You can find out more about my work here, but here are a few highlights about what I do.

Photo: Hayley Madden

The Barman

My debut pamphlet published by Bad Betty Press tells the story of a relationship between the speaker and an unnamed barman backwards through time. At turns domestic and surreal, it asks how to navigate a personal relationship in a time of 24/7 news. It was selected as the Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Choice in Summer 2022.

Bi+ Lines

Between 2023-24, I secured Arts Council England funding to run a project for bi+ poets, organising workshops and editing the world's first bi+ poetry anthology with LGBTQ+ publisher fourteen poems, Bi+ Lines, featuring 45 poems on in-betweenness, chosen from 2,800 submissions from 40 countries worldwide.

Dead [Women] Poets Society

I co-direct Dead [Women] Poets Society, a live literature organisation which "resurrects" women poets of the past. We ran an Arts Council England funded national tour 2019-21 and in 2020 guest-edited an issue of Modern Poetry in Translation with a focus on dead women poets. 2025 is our 10th anniversary year.

Poetry_Translation_Centre_Workshop_23_Ma

Workshops & mentoring

I run workshops for adults and young people for organisations like the Royal Society of Literature, Hong Kong International Literary Festival and Spread the Word on poetry, zine-making and more. I also work with individuals to edit their manuscripts and poems, and how to break into the poetry sector. Photo: Luke Witcomb.