The Tall Lighthouse
Poets: Abdul Jamal |  Abi Curtis |  Adam O'Riordan | Andy BrownAoife Mannix  |  Baden Prince |  Brendan Cleary  |  Camellia StaffordCathy Ryan |  Ebele  |  Gareth Jones Graham Buchan |  Heather Taylor |  Helen Mort | James Bell | Janice Fixter |  Jay BernardJohn Clarke | John McCullough | Keith PleaseKen Champion |  Kim Lasky |  Lisa Dart  |  Maggie Sullivan Marc Swan | Miriam Gamble |  Nii Parkes |  Pierre Ringwald | Retta BowenRhian Edwards | Ronnie McGrath |  Wendy French

Helen Mort

Helen Mort Helen's poems are tender and intriguing, filled with subtle yet memorable images. She writes with an easy maturity and is a welcome new presence. Helen was a winner of the Foyle Young Poets Award on five occasions from 1997 to 2004 and her work has been published in a variety of publications including The Rialto, The Times Educational Supplement and in several Poetry Society pamphlets.


publications:
the shape of every box

the shape of every box captures Helen Mort in the incipient process of distilling her own distinctive brand of desire. Entwined around love and the stillnesses of observation, these poems bind tenaciously to sensation even as their tendrils sway in elusive, sometimes surreal, air. Mort's limpid diction contrasts well with her slant takes on narrative and emotion, the poems rarely allowing us to settle but, rather, developing and complicating their effects on our palate of thought.
                                                                                                                        Mario Petrucci

 

North/South from the shape of every box

 

You hated the bicycles,

all sharp spokes and silence

sluicing past with no lights on, leaving

puddle water up your trousers. 

Not a hint of warning, you’d rant,

cursing a blur of silver.

On King’s Parade, I almost

slipped right past you, blonde in the crowd. 

We order pints, talk with an accent

I’d forgotten, you don’t want to hear

about lectures and cloisters, about girls

you’ll never meet with names like Coriander. 

When you go to hug me

we skirt each other, move in close -

two cyclists with their heads down,

each waiting for the other to swerve.