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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.