Jennifer Freya Helgeson is a writer and poet whose work explores memory, loss, love, nature, and human resilience, often tracing the ways the past continues to shape the present. With a PhD in Environmental and Developmental Economics and a background that includes peer-reviewed publications, co-edited textbooks, and writing for media outlets, Helgeson brings an interdisciplinary sensibility to her creative work, connecting personal experience with broader questions about humanity, technology, society, and the environment. She began writing poetry for publication in autumn 2025, and her work has since appeared in several online and print anthologies. Jennifer is also a passionate poetry educator and has served as a poet-in-residence. Jennifer’s debut poetry collection The Silhouette of the Day Before reflects on time, remembrance, connection, and the enduring forms love takes after loss. When she’s not writing, Jennifer enjoys gardening, dancing, and spending meaningful time with her loved ones. To learn more about her work, visit: jenniferfreyahelgeson.com and follow Jennifer on Instagram @jfhelgeson.
PRAISE:
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These words are a museum of slow dancing shadows, held up to the different flames of mourning. Helgeson’s debut collection daringly “dreams backwards” and offers the unique autonomy of self-awareness in watching a loved one face illness, along with the many different ghosts and voices that loss leaves for us to grapple with, face, water and love. Helgeson beautifully reminds us that the quiet is just as much a place for growth as it is for death.
–Michaela Godding, author of dwelling (Bottlecap Press) and The Year Our Grandmothers Died (AOS Publishing).
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Jennifer Helgeson knows how to wield the space between words. The nuance in a pause. The heaviness of subtext. Her words paint pictures of love and loss, the bitter-sweet experience of being human.
–Libby Feltis, Associate Editor of Hoxie Gorge Review and the Editor of Tension Literary
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The Silhouette of The Day Before is a map, a calendar, a mirror, and “a thing with weight, a thing that smells of paper and time.” In this illuminating collection, Jennfier Freya Helgeson reflects on universal themes of love and loss using a variety of poetic forms stitched from hymns, prayers, letters, and conversations. Divided in four sections like cardinal points on a compass rose, this poignant debut, an algorithm of lyrical signposts, reminds readers navigating the gravity of grief to believe in growth born from grace.
—Michele Evans, author of purl and februaries
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