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The Malarkey
The malarkey is over in the back of the car - As soon as you turn your back, time slips. The humdrum present has become the precious, irrecoverable past. The ways in which the present longs for the past, questions it, tries to get in touch with it and stretches the power of memory to its limits, are central to this new collection by Helen Dunmore. Joseph Severn recalls Keats hurling a bad dinner out onto the steps of the Piazza di Spagna; the glamour of John Donne's portrait 'taken in shadows' seduces a new generation; the dead assert their right to walk through the imaginations of the living - These are poems and stories of loss and extraordinary rediscovery. The Malarkey was Helen Dunmore's last poetry book before her final collection Inside the Wave (2017). It brings together poems of great lyricism, feeling and artistry.
- GenresPoetry
71 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2012
1 person is currently reading
32 people want to read
About the author
Helen Dunmore
118 books974 followersI was born in December 1952, in Yorkshire, the second of four children. My father was the eldest of twelve, and this extended family has no doubt had a strong influence on my life, as have my own children. In a large family you hear a great many stories. You also come to understand very early that stories hold quite different meanings for different listeners, and can be recast from many viewpoints.
Poetry was very important to me from childhood. I began by listening to and learning by heart all kinds of rhymes and hymns and ballads, and then went on to make up my own poems, using the forms I’d heard. Writing these down came a little later.
I studied English at the University of York, and after graduation taught English as a foreign language in Finland.
At around this time I began to write the poems which formed my first poetry collection, The Apple Fall, and to publish these in magazines. I also completed two novels; fortunately neither survives, and it was more than ten years before I wrote another novel.
During this time I published several collections of poems, and wrote some of the short stories which were later collected in Love of Fat Men. I began to travel a great deal within the UK and around the world, for poetry tours and writing residences. This experience of working in many different countries and cultures has been very important to my work. I reviewed poetry for Stand and Poetry Review and later for The Observer, and subsequently reviewed fiction for The Observer, The Times and The Guardian. My critical work includes introductions to the poems of Emily Brontë, the short stories of D H Lawrence and F Scott Fitzgerald, a study of Virginia Woolf’s relationships with women and Introductions to the Folio Society's edition of Anna Karenina and to the new Penguin Classics edition of Tolstoy's My Confession.
During the 1980s and early 1990s I taught poetry and creative writing, tutored residential writing courses for the Arvon Foundation and took part in the Poetry Society's Writer in Schools scheme, as well as giving readings and workshops in schools, hospitals, prisons and every other kind of place where a poem could conceivably be welcome. I also taught at the University of Glamorgan, the University of Bristol's Continuing Education Department and for the Open College of the Arts.
In the late 1980s I began to publish short stories, and these were the beginning of a breakthrough into fiction. What I had learned of prose technique through the short story gave me the impetus to start writing novels. My first novel for children was Going to Egypt, published in 1992, and my first novel for adults was Zennor in Darkness, published in 1993, which won the McKitterick Prize. This was also my first researched novel, set in the First World War and dealing with the period when D H Lawrence and his wife Frieda lived in Zennor in Cornwall, and came under suspicion as German spies.
My third novel, A Spell of Winter, won the inaugural Orange Prize for Fiction in 1996, and since then I have published a number of novels, short story collections and books for children. Full details of all these books are available on this website. The last of The Ingo Quartet, The Crossing of Ingo, was published in paperback in Spring 2009.
My seventh novel, The Siege (2001) was shortlisted both for the Whitbread Novel Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction. This was another researched novel, which grew from a lifelong love of Russian history, culture and literature. It is is set in Leningrad during the first year of the siege of the city by German forces, which lasted for 880 days from the fall of Mga on 30th August 1941. The Siege has been translated into Russian by Tatyana Averchina, and extracts have been broadcast on radio in St Petersburg. House of Orphans was published in 2006, and in 2008 Counting the Stars. Its central characters are the Roman poet Catullus, who lived during the last years of the Republic,
Poetry was very important to me from childhood. I began by listening to and learning by heart all kinds of rhymes and hymns and ballads, and then went on to make up my own poems, using the forms I’d heard. Writing these down came a little later.
I studied English at the University of York, and after graduation taught English as a foreign language in Finland.
At around this time I began to write the poems which formed my first poetry collection, The Apple Fall, and to publish these in magazines. I also completed two novels; fortunately neither survives, and it was more than ten years before I wrote another novel.
During this time I published several collections of poems, and wrote some of the short stories which were later collected in Love of Fat Men. I began to travel a great deal within the UK and around the world, for poetry tours and writing residences. This experience of working in many different countries and cultures has been very important to my work. I reviewed poetry for Stand and Poetry Review and later for The Observer, and subsequently reviewed fiction for The Observer, The Times and The Guardian. My critical work includes introductions to the poems of Emily Brontë, the short stories of D H Lawrence and F Scott Fitzgerald, a study of Virginia Woolf’s relationships with women and Introductions to the Folio Society's edition of Anna Karenina and to the new Penguin Classics edition of Tolstoy's My Confession.
During the 1980s and early 1990s I taught poetry and creative writing, tutored residential writing courses for the Arvon Foundation and took part in the Poetry Society's Writer in Schools scheme, as well as giving readings and workshops in schools, hospitals, prisons and every other kind of place where a poem could conceivably be welcome. I also taught at the University of Glamorgan, the University of Bristol's Continuing Education Department and for the Open College of the Arts.
In the late 1980s I began to publish short stories, and these were the beginning of a breakthrough into fiction. What I had learned of prose technique through the short story gave me the impetus to start writing novels. My first novel for children was Going to Egypt, published in 1992, and my first novel for adults was Zennor in Darkness, published in 1993, which won the McKitterick Prize. This was also my first researched novel, set in the First World War and dealing with the period when D H Lawrence and his wife Frieda lived in Zennor in Cornwall, and came under suspicion as German spies.
My third novel, A Spell of Winter, won the inaugural Orange Prize for Fiction in 1996, and since then I have published a number of novels, short story collections and books for children. Full details of all these books are available on this website. The last of The Ingo Quartet, The Crossing of Ingo, was published in paperback in Spring 2009.
My seventh novel, The Siege (2001) was shortlisted both for the Whitbread Novel Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction. This was another researched novel, which grew from a lifelong love of Russian history, culture and literature. It is is set in Leningrad during the first year of the siege of the city by German forces, which lasted for 880 days from the fall of Mga on 30th August 1941. The Siege has been translated into Russian by Tatyana Averchina, and extracts have been broadcast on radio in St Petersburg. House of Orphans was published in 2006, and in 2008 Counting the Stars. Its central characters are the Roman poet Catullus, who lived during the last years of the Republic,
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 31, 2018
I read Helen Dunmore's poetry collection The Malarkey a couple of weeks before she posthumously won the Costa Book Award 2018 for Inside the Wave. I have read a lot of her fiction in the past, but this was the first taste of her poetry for me. I was impressed; some of the poems collected here are beautiful, and full of feeling. My favourite was her musing about Keats' life and death; Dunmore's long prose poetry, I feel, really suits her writing style.
August 28, 2025
A pleasant poetry collection that was just OK.
The Malarkey features verse focused on later life realisations, the glory of nature and personal dialogues with classic poets. Dunmore's style is very accessible, even when it follows a tangent I don't really chime with.
Aside from a tendency to repeat lines in a way that closes the poem rather than ends them meaningfully, I had no complaints with the stylistic choices. What put me off most was the topics. Mind you, I found these more dull and overfamiliar than anything else. No great crime.
So I'll round off by saying, The Malarkey was a fine compilation and a quick read. I recommend it to fans of Dunmore's novels or any of the other poetry collections printed by Bloodaxe.
Notable Poems
• Visible and Invisible - a lovely poem about childhood magic and adult insight.
• The Captainess of Laundry - a fun and rhythmic absurdity that performs well.
• The Last Heartbeat - an anatomical meditation on a dying body's final act.
The Malarkey features verse focused on later life realisations, the glory of nature and personal dialogues with classic poets. Dunmore's style is very accessible, even when it follows a tangent I don't really chime with.
Aside from a tendency to repeat lines in a way that closes the poem rather than ends them meaningfully, I had no complaints with the stylistic choices. What put me off most was the topics. Mind you, I found these more dull and overfamiliar than anything else. No great crime.
So I'll round off by saying, The Malarkey was a fine compilation and a quick read. I recommend it to fans of Dunmore's novels or any of the other poetry collections printed by Bloodaxe.
Notable Poems
• Visible and Invisible - a lovely poem about childhood magic and adult insight.
• The Captainess of Laundry - a fun and rhythmic absurdity that performs well.
• The Last Heartbeat - an anatomical meditation on a dying body's final act.
February 5, 2024
I love Dunmore's books so I blindly ordered this one, not knowing it was poetry. What I enjoyed most are the two (very short) short stories included. The rest doesn't really work for me. The poems feel like quite private snapshots which no doubt can be very evocative for whom lived the moments they refer to, but not for the stranger. I just cannot see the point of publishing them.
They are elliptic, cryptic even.
No consolation verse-side, as there are no verses, and none of the music that makes poetry so effective even if you have no idea what it is about.
They are elliptic, cryptic even.
No consolation verse-side, as there are no verses, and none of the music that makes poetry so effective even if you have no idea what it is about.
June 10, 2017
I love Helen Dunmore’s poetic voice; her imagery and the way she threads words and worlds together are hypnotic so much so that one poem tugs on you to read the next. I particularly liked her prose poems in this collection (whereby she jumps back in time and inhabits artists – Severn and Keats, John Donne - and is reminiscent of her historical novels). The poem ‘Bildad’ is also a favourite, it is a poem of stunning beauty and perfection. To be read again and again and to be tasted slowly.
June 21, 2015
Closer to 4 stars than to 3.
lookedinto-decidedagainst
August 17, 2016
July 5, 2016
really enjoyed the first half, struggled to read through the whole collection though. something to read very slowly.
Read
February 24, 2018I dunno, man. Poetry just seems a bit silly to me, ya know. But trying my best out here.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews