Professor Helen Mort
Professor Helen Mort
Professor
My profile
Biography
Helen Mort joined the Department of English and Manchester Writing School as Lecturer in Creative Writing in September 2016. Helen is a poet and has published three collections with Chatto & Windus, ‘Division Street’ (winner of the Fenton Aldeburgh Prize, shortlisted for the Costa Prize and T.S. Eliot Prize), ‘No Map Could Show Them’ (2016) and ‘The Illustrated Woman’ (2022, shortlisted for the Forward Prize). Her first novel ‘Black Car Burning’ was published in 2018 and her memoir A Line Above The Sky was published in 2022 and shortlisted for the Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature.
Words of wisdom
“To know fully even one field or one land is a lifetime’s experience. In the world of poetic experience it is depth that counts, not width. A gap in a hedge, a smooth rock surfacing a narrow lane, a view of a woody meadow, the stream at the junction of four small fields - these are as much as a man can fully experience.” - Patrick Kavanagh
Academic and professional qualifications
PhD in English Literature, University of Sheffield
BA in Social and Political Sciences, Cambridge University
External examiner roles
University of Huddersfield
St Andrews University
Personal website address
Interests and expertise
About some of my books:
The Illustrated Woman (poetry) - The Illustrated Woman is a tender and incisive collection about what it means to live in a female body - from the joys and struggles of new motherhood to the trauma of deepfakes. Amidst the landscapes of the Peak District and the glaciers of Greenland, Helen Mort’s remarkable poems transfix the reader in a celebration of beauty and resilience.
A Line Above The Sky (life writing / nature writing / memoir) - A Line Above the Sky melds memoir and nature writing to ask why humans are drawn to danger, and how we can find freedom in pushing our limits. It is a visceral love letter to losing oneself in physicality, whether climbing a mountain or bringing a child into the world, and an unforgettable celebration of womanhood in all its forms.
No Map Could Show Them (poetry) - This collection offers a perspective on the heights we scale and the distances we run, the routes we follow and the paths we make for ourselves. Here are odes to the women who dared to break new ground – from Miss Jemima Morrell, a young Victorian woman from Yorkshire who hiked the Swiss Peaks in her skirts and petticoats, to the modern British mountaineer Alison Hargreaves, who died descending from the summit of K2.
Impact
Engaging New Audiences with Public Poetry
Read moreProjects
I am currently working on a hybrid form book about the cultural representation of stepmothers and the notion of the ‘wicked stepmother’. If you’d like to know more about this project please get in touch!
Teaching
Why study…
“Why does one begin to write? Because she feels misunderstood, I guess. Because it never comes out clearly enough when she tries to speak. Because she wants to rephrase the world, to take it in and give it back again differently, so that everything is used and nothing is lost. Because it’s something to do to pass the time until she is old enough to experience the things she writes about.” – Nicole Krauss
Postgraduate teaching
Reading Poetry 2
I supervise a range of critical-creative PhD projects with connections to place writing, gender, poetry as research and much more.
Subject areas
Creative Writing
Research outputs
My research interests include place writing, writing landscapes (especially the post-industrial), writing bodies and the-body-as-landscape. I completed my PhD on the connections between neuroscience and contemporary poetry, focusing on the work of Norman MacCaig, John Burnside and Paul Muldoon.
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Performances
Mort, H.R. (2017) BBC Contains Strong Language: Strong Language Live. [Performance] Hull, 28/9/2017 -
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Books (authored/edited/special issues)
Evans, P., Dee, T., Mort, H., Clarke, G., Cracknell, L. (2918) Cornerstones.From Dartmoor to the Arctic Circle.. Toller Fratrum: Little Toller Books.
Mort, H. (2022) The Illustrated Woman. Chatto & Windus.
Mort, H. (2022) A Line Above the Sky On Mountains and Motherhood. Random House.
Mort, H., Webb, M., Clare, J. (2022) Poetry Rebellion - poems and prose to rewild the spirit. Batsford Books Ltd.
MORT, H.E.L.E.N. (2019) Black Car Burning. Chatto & Windus.
Mort, H.R. (2018) The Singing Glacier. Hercules Editions.
Mort, H., Maconie, S. (2017) One For The Road: An Anthology of Pubs and Poetry. Smith/Doorstop Books.
Mort, H. (2016) No Map Could Show Them. Chatto & Windus.
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Media
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Journal articles
Hoult, E., Mort, H., Pahl, K., Rasool, Z. (2020) 'Poetry as method – trying to see the world differently.' Research for All, 4(1) pp. 87-101.
Mort, H.R. (2016) 'Gap to Gap: The search for the perfect climbing poem.' Alpinist, (55)
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Conference papers
Mort, H.R. (2015) 'From Summit to Stanza: The Trouble With Mountaineering Poetry.' In Thinking Mountains 2015. Jasper, Canada, 7/5/2015 - 9/5/2015.