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Molly Holden

Image © Nickie Carpenter and Gerard Holden

Molly Holden (1927–1981) was a British poet known for her works portraying the natural world, publishing two pamphlets and three full collections in her lifetime, followed by a posthumous Selected Poems. Raised in Surrey and Wiltshire, she settled in Bromsgrove. A long battle with multiple sclerosis limited her mobility and halted what was otherwise promising to be a brilliant poetic career, although late in her life she won a Cholmondeley Award. Renard Press’s Natural Presences (ed. John Greening) marks the centenary of her birth with a fresh selection, aiming to restore her name to the canon.

Natural Presences

Molly Holden’s was a name to watch, praised by Robert Lowell, anthologised by Philip Larkin, but it has slipped from the canon. To mark the centenary of her birth, John Greening has revisited her work and chosen a new selection, including poems from unpublished manuscripts discovered by her family. Natural Presences offers a fresh introduction to Holden’s work – it is time she was more widely recognised for the gentle power of her words.

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