Turn Again To Me and Other Poems

by Helen Adam

Genres: Poetry

120 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

Helen Douglas Adam was a Scottish journalist and author. After moving to London, she worked as a journalist for the Weekly Scotsman. At the outbreak of the Second World War she was stranded in Connecticut, where she had been attending a wedding. She later moved to San Francisco, where she became a muse to the beat generation of the 1950s and 60s.

Her dark, timeless tales of doomed love and emotional revenge are hauntingly crafted into traditional ballad forms. Thanks to publication in magazines and anthologies and personal readings at universities, theatres and poetry centres, she had an enthusiastic following in the USA. Her Selected Poems and Ballads were published in 1974.

Reviews

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sigh... how is this strange, wonderfully idiosyncratic Beat poetess not known by more people?? Helen Adam writes 90% in rhymed verse, but things rarely feel wrote or cliche. Instead,there's a thundering sort of rhythmic aural heart to her work that's missing from almost all contemporary poetry. She uses all the tropes of Romantic 19th century poetry-- love affairs, princesses, magic, etc-- but turns them all on their head. She has a wonderful flair for the macabre, and for making a story take you somewhere unexpected.

That's the other thing-- her poems often tell stories, a sort of lost art poetically. Because of this though, she really condenses plot to its tightest essentials. Her poems are tightly wound, and because of that she generally avoids the sort of flabby verbal excess you get with badly written rhyming poetry, where there seems to be filler so that you can get the rhythym you want. Instead, they really sing, with a wonderful mix of music, rhythym, image, and plot.

Well worth reading.

[Bruce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fabulous stylist, overlooked poet of the (first)Berkeley Renaissance, with an English attitude as backdrop. A great bard of the mystical dark.