No Map Could Show Them - Softcover

Mort, Helen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1784740640 ISBN 13: 9781784740641

Publisher: Chatto & Windus, 2016

Synopsis

The brillilant second collection from Next Generation Poet, T.S. Eliot and Costa shortlisted poet, Helen Mort.

'When we climb alone
en cordeé feminine,
we are magicians of the Alps -
we make the routes we follow
disappear.'

Helen Mort's riveting second collection is inspired by her two greatest passions: mountaineering and running.

In odes to the young women who tramped the Alps in their skirts and petticoats, long hemlines and 'fashionable shoes', here are poems inspired by Miss Jemima Morrell, a young woman from Yorkshire, who was the first Victorian woman to scale the Swiss peaks. At the heart of the collection lies the breathtaking sequence 'Black Rocks', dedicated to Alison Hargreaves, the British climber who perished at the face of K2.

These are distinctive and unforgettable poems of passion and precipices, of edges and extremes. No Map Could Show Them confirms Helen's position as one of the finest young poets at work today.

About this title

About the Author

HELEN MORT was born in Sheffield in 1985, and grew up in nearby Chesterfield. Five times winner of the Foyle Young Poets Award, she received an Eric Gregory Award in 2007 and won the Manchester Young Writer Prize in 2008. In 2010, she became the youngest ever Poet in Residence at the Wordsworth Trust, Grasmere. Her first collection, Division Street (2013), was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize and Costa Poetry Award, and won the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize. In 2014, she was named as a 'Next Generation Poet', the prestigious accolade announced only once every ten years, recognising the 20 most exciting new poets from the UK and Ireland.

Review

"A highly intelligent, yet very accessible collection and an interesting addition to the ongoing discussion of where our culture is with gender identity... There is something which feels very necessary about this collection and there are moments throughout where it feels like a worthy successor to The Feminine Gospels and The World's Wife." * Huffington Post * "Wonderfully playful... In the crowded field of mountain literature, this precise, sparky and constantly surprising book more than holds its own." -- Roger Cox * Scotsman * "A perfect response to the chauvinism face by the earliest female mountaineers... This precise, sparky and constantly surprising book more than holds its own." -- Roger Cox * Yorkshire Post * "Superb young Sheffield poet." -- Horatia Harrod * Financial Times * "Mort's assurance keeps us on edge, but trustful. One could say she doesn't put a foot wrong. Her style is spare, showing bone without too much flesh... This is a strong, fierce collection." -- Peter Scupham * Literary Review *

About this edition

• Publisher: Chatto & Windus
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1784740640
• ISBN 13: 9781784740641
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 80