Helen Burke was born in Doncaster in 1953. She started writing poetry in 1969, and amassed an impressive record of competition victories, including the Manchester International, the Suffolk Poetry Prize, and the Ilkley Literature Performance Poetry Prize (twice). Her work has been published in Rialto, New Welsh Review, Northwords, Dream Catcher, as well as in innumerable anthologies and pamphlets.
Her full-length collections of poetry are The Ruby Slippers (2011), and Here's Looking at You Kid (2014), both published by Valley Press. July 2017 saw the release of Today the Birds Will Sing, a definitive 'collected' edition including all the poetry Helen published in the past fifty years.
Helen passed away at her home in York on the 20th April 2019. You can read Valley Press publisher Jamie McGarry's tribute to her here.
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