Helen Dunmore
Novelist and poet
Collections include The Sea Skater and Bestiary. Winner Orange Prize for Fiction 1996 for A Spell of Winter.
or do they rest in their dreams
along the surface of the water
like a bevy of dragonflies
From ‘The dream-life of priests’ in Short Days, Long Nights (Newcastle: Bloodaxe, 1991)
a dark handful, sweet-edged,
dissolving in one mouthful.
From ‘Wild strawberries’ in Short Days, Long Nights (Newcastle: Bloodaxe, 1991)