Poet Lynne Hjelmgaard was born in New York and has lived permanently in London since 2011. After crossing the Atlantic in a sailboat with her late husband she wrote the poems  collected in her book Manhattan Sonnets.  She met Dannie Abse at the Torbay Poetry Festival, himself widowed, and became his partner in his later years. Her most recent poetry collection, The Turpentine Tree, was published last year.