I mention this because Helen Mort has stated that “landscape is an important presence in her work”, in fact she composes many of her poems whilst walking or running on theCumbrian Fells and whereas I felt that the poetry in Liz Berry’s collection Black Country, used language and specifically dialect to place this region, it’s landscape and people on the map and in some way hark back to a specific time through the language used, I believe Helen Mort seems to me more precise, she picks out places, names and uses them as almost as though they were Cairns, boundary stones, pinpointing to what she is trying to communicate. Helen Mort, seems to have been raised within a similar landscape to Liz Berry, a poet I have previously posted on, Helen was born in Sheffield (South Yorkshire,) and raised Derbyshire which is in theMidlands, although east as opposed to Liz’s west. Distinctive and assured, these poems show us how, at the site of conflict, a moment of reconciliation can be born.” Named for a street in Sheffield, this is a collection that cherishes specificity: the particularity of names the reflections the world throws back at us the precise moment of a realisation. “From the clash between striking miners and police to the delicate conflicts in personal relationships, Helen Mort’s stunning début is marked by distance and division. Add to this that the poems featured in this post all come from her first full collection of poetry, which was shortlisted for both the T.S Eliot Prize and the Costa Prize (2013) and won the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize in 2014, she was also named as one of the Next Generation poets by the Poetry Book Society. She was also the Derbyshire Poet Laureate (2013-2015). A quick check on-line and it turns out that she is a five times winner of the Foyle Young Poets award, has received an Eric Gregory Award from The Society of Authors (2007), won the Manchester Poetry Prize - Young Writer Prize - in (2008), and in 2010, became the youngest ever poet in residence at The Wordsworth Trust, Grasmere. Staring out to sea, as if in the distanceĬarol Ann Duffy has described Helen Mort as “amongst the brightest stars in the sparkling new constellation of young British Poets” and, going on her Curriculum Vitae, so far you’d have to be brave or just plain stupid to dispute this statement. We shook our heads at Moor and Maud andMorden. Yes, it was our name and spelled just so –ĭad repeated it in Oldham’s finest guttural, I trampled ants on the quay at Dieppe, dawdlingīy the desk where they wouldn't take yes for an answer The French For Death I trampled ants on the quay at Dieppe, dawdling by the desk where they wouldn't take yes for an answer yes, it was our name and spe The French For Death
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