Helen Mort
@helenmort.bsky.social
Poet, author, Sheffield-er. Mountaineering literature specialist, running enthusiast, part time Professor of Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University.
A joy to interview Martin Parr yesterday at @mcrlitfest.bsky.social
October 20, 2025 at 3:52 PM
A joy to interview Martin Parr yesterday at @mcrlitfest.bsky.social
Tomorrow night in Sheffield I’ll be reading a new commissioned poem for Jane Austen (and women who write!). Please join us: offtheshelf.org.uk/events/a-hou...
Rachel Bower is an award-winning author and poet from Bradford. Her debut novel, It Comes from the River, and third poetry collection, Bee, have both been published in 2025.
offtheshelf.org.uk
October 13, 2025 at 5:00 PM
Tomorrow night in Sheffield I’ll be reading a new commissioned poem for Jane Austen (and women who write!). Please join us: offtheshelf.org.uk/events/a-hou...
Reposted by Helen Mort
RIP Tony Harrison – a piece on metre and voice in his poetry
With the sad news of the passing of Tony Harrison, who as a working class poet had a great impact on me during my formative years of writing in the 1980s, I went back to a piece I was commissioned to write for an OUP collection of essays…
With the sad news of the passing of Tony Harrison, who as a working class poet had a great impact on me during my formative years of writing in the 1980s, I went back to a piece I was commissioned to write for an OUP collection of essays…
RIP Tony Harrison – a piece on metre and voice in his poetry
With the sad news of the passing of Tony Harrison, who as a working class poet had a great impact on me during my formative years of writing in the 1980s, I went back to a piece I was commissioned to write for an OUP collection of essays on his writing - both poetic and dramatic - in 1997. The book, …
martyncrucefix.com
September 29, 2025 at 1:06 PM
RIP Tony Harrison – a piece on metre and voice in his poetry
With the sad news of the passing of Tony Harrison, who as a working class poet had a great impact on me during my formative years of writing in the 1980s, I went back to a piece I was commissioned to write for an OUP collection of essays…
With the sad news of the passing of Tony Harrison, who as a working class poet had a great impact on me during my formative years of writing in the 1980s, I went back to a piece I was commissioned to write for an OUP collection of essays…
Reposted by Helen Mort
I was a fourteen year-old public schoolboy when our English teacher introduced us to 'The School of Eloquence' sequence. It blew the cobwebs off poetry for us, broadening its range and power and shocking our comfortable political assumptions. There was no one like him.
RIP Tony Harrison
RIP Tony Harrison
Book Ends - Poetry Archive
Baked the day she suddenly dropped dead we chew it slowly that last apple pie. Shocked into sleeplessness you’re scared of bed. We never could talk much, and now don’t try. You’re like book ends, the ...
poetryarchive.org
September 29, 2025 at 8:37 AM
I was a fourteen year-old public schoolboy when our English teacher introduced us to 'The School of Eloquence' sequence. It blew the cobwebs off poetry for us, broadening its range and power and shocking our comfortable political assumptions. There was no one like him.
RIP Tony Harrison
RIP Tony Harrison
On turning 40, the influence of Tony Harrison and some stuff about leaves. Oh, and a poem from my next collection. open.substack.com/pub/helenmor...
Turn like a leaf
On becoming 40
open.substack.com
September 29, 2025 at 2:30 PM
On turning 40, the influence of Tony Harrison and some stuff about leaves. Oh, and a poem from my next collection. open.substack.com/pub/helenmor...
Reposted by Helen Mort
can we not all have composter syndrome instead. a desire to mulch.
September 29, 2025 at 2:17 PM
can we not all have composter syndrome instead. a desire to mulch.
Reposted by Helen Mort
On Thursday @britishlibrary.bsky.social @helenmort.bsky.social hosts @writeback.bsky.social with Eliza Clark, whose horror-adjacent novels include the pitch black comedy sensation Boy Parts; renowned author and educator Musa Okwonga, and celebrated novelist Olivia Sudjic
events.bl.uk/events/write...
events.bl.uk/events/write...
WriteBack: An Evening of Writers Off Duty | British Library
Join us for the much-anticipated return of this exploratory events series which invites writers to speak on topics of their own choosing. Whether it's rese
events.bl.uk
September 22, 2025 at 5:45 PM
On Thursday @britishlibrary.bsky.social @helenmort.bsky.social hosts @writeback.bsky.social with Eliza Clark, whose horror-adjacent novels include the pitch black comedy sensation Boy Parts; renowned author and educator Musa Okwonga, and celebrated novelist Olivia Sudjic
events.bl.uk/events/write...
events.bl.uk/events/write...
Tomorrow - a free Centre for Place Writing pop up event at Manchester Met. Please come and join us! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/centre-for...
Centre for Place Writing Pop Up Day
A day of talks, readings, and discussions exploring how writing about place connects to today's big issues, from climate change to migration
www.eventbrite.co.uk
September 11, 2025 at 11:28 AM
Tomorrow - a free Centre for Place Writing pop up event at Manchester Met. Please come and join us! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/centre-for...
A new poem about being ‘safe’. open.substack.com/pub/helenmor...
A Saturday poem
How charming - to exist where nothing seeks / to kill us
open.substack.com
August 11, 2025 at 9:08 AM
A new poem about being ‘safe’. open.substack.com/pub/helenmor...
Reposted by Helen Mort
‘so we have a man… protect / him against / life his / life’
@helenmort.bsky.social’s ‘Dad vs. Dad’ is a work slim enough to finish over a lunch-break, but like shards of glass (indeed, like history) these poems and collages will stick deep in you. @vervepoetrypress.bsky.social have given us magic.
@helenmort.bsky.social’s ‘Dad vs. Dad’ is a work slim enough to finish over a lunch-break, but like shards of glass (indeed, like history) these poems and collages will stick deep in you. @vervepoetrypress.bsky.social have given us magic.
July 3, 2025 at 9:05 AM
‘so we have a man… protect / him against / life his / life’
@helenmort.bsky.social’s ‘Dad vs. Dad’ is a work slim enough to finish over a lunch-break, but like shards of glass (indeed, like history) these poems and collages will stick deep in you. @vervepoetrypress.bsky.social have given us magic.
@helenmort.bsky.social’s ‘Dad vs. Dad’ is a work slim enough to finish over a lunch-break, but like shards of glass (indeed, like history) these poems and collages will stick deep in you. @vervepoetrypress.bsky.social have given us magic.
Annie Dillard, Melissa Febos, Audre Lorde, poetry & weasels. helenmort.substack.com/p/ecstatic-d...
August 8, 2025 at 3:14 PM
Annie Dillard, Melissa Febos, Audre Lorde, poetry & weasels. helenmort.substack.com/p/ecstatic-d...
Been enjoying an early read of this brilliant book published by @andotherstories.bsky.social - www.andotherstories.org/dreaming-of-...
Dreaming of Dead People | And Other Stories
In the ‘middle of life’ Lavinia reviews her frustrations, her solitariness, the grief and the rapture, her seeming companions in a pageant presided over, as it were, by the masks of Owl, for winter, a...
www.andotherstories.org
July 2, 2025 at 12:12 PM
Been enjoying an early read of this brilliant book published by @andotherstories.bsky.social - www.andotherstories.org/dreaming-of-...
What have John Berger, Erving Goffman, an invented actor, an imaginary Fringe show and my ridiculous glasses got in common? Only one way to find out. 😂
open.substack.com/pub/helenmor...
open.substack.com/pub/helenmor...
'We were too good at that game'
Secret audience, silence & John Berger on surveillance
open.substack.com
July 2, 2025 at 12:09 PM
What have John Berger, Erving Goffman, an invented actor, an imaginary Fringe show and my ridiculous glasses got in common? Only one way to find out. 😂
open.substack.com/pub/helenmor...
open.substack.com/pub/helenmor...
Herons. 🐦 (why is there no heron emoji?!)…I make most of my Substack free but regularly post unpublished, poems stories and other things-with-wings for paid subscribers. Thank you to anyone who reads on either plan for the support! open.substack.com/pub/helenmor...
'When you've set the world on fire / there will still be herons'
Another peek inside my notebook
open.substack.com
July 1, 2025 at 4:33 PM
Herons. 🐦 (why is there no heron emoji?!)…I make most of my Substack free but regularly post unpublished, poems stories and other things-with-wings for paid subscribers. Thank you to anyone who reads on either plan for the support! open.substack.com/pub/helenmor...
On wrongness, wrong-as-a-place, poetry and wrong, Bill Matthews and tattoos. helenmort.substack.com/p/into-the-t...
'Into the tunnels of error like a rat terrier'
On being wrong
helenmort.substack.com
June 26, 2025 at 3:17 PM
On wrongness, wrong-as-a-place, poetry and wrong, Bill Matthews and tattoos. helenmort.substack.com/p/into-the-t...
On wrongness and wrong-as-a-place and Bill Matthews and Charles Simic and tattoos; helenmort.substack.com/p/into-the-t...
'Into the tunnels of error like a rat terrier'
On being wrong
helenmort.substack.com
June 26, 2025 at 3:16 PM
On wrongness and wrong-as-a-place and Bill Matthews and Charles Simic and tattoos; helenmort.substack.com/p/into-the-t...
Tonight - got your tickets yet? events.bl.uk/events/write...
June 26, 2025 at 7:52 AM
Tonight - got your tickets yet? events.bl.uk/events/write...
Thoughts at the end of a @centreplacewriting.bsky.social poetry series on ‘eco-poetry’. Wait, who made that paw print?! 🐻 🐾
helenmort.substack.com/p/how-i-miss...
helenmort.substack.com/p/how-i-miss...
'How I missed predatory animals and the fear of being eaten."
Poetry & rewilding, animism & the erotic
helenmort.substack.com
June 23, 2025 at 1:49 PM
Thoughts at the end of a @centreplacewriting.bsky.social poetry series on ‘eco-poetry’. Wait, who made that paw print?! 🐻 🐾
helenmort.substack.com/p/how-i-miss...
helenmort.substack.com/p/how-i-miss...
Fairytales, time, trails of breadcrumbs and pebbles. open.substack.com/pub/helenmor...
An unlived life, eleven pebbles in
Fairytales and time: another peek inside my notebook
open.substack.com
June 18, 2025 at 12:17 PM
Fairytales, time, trails of breadcrumbs and pebbles. open.substack.com/pub/helenmor...
This Thursday, 6.30pm at Manchester Poetry Library, a Poetry Research Group and Centre for Place Writing event. www.mmu.ac.uk/poetry-libra...
Poetry Reading Series: Hannah Copley and Isabelle Galleymore in conversation, 19 Jun 2025
Reading, Manchester Poetry Library
www.mmu.ac.uk
June 17, 2025 at 8:20 PM
This Thursday, 6.30pm at Manchester Poetry Library, a Poetry Research Group and Centre for Place Writing event. www.mmu.ac.uk/poetry-libra...
Love this pic of a wonderful night of poetry in Berlin on Sunday with fellow poets from around the world. Photo by Natalia Reich and event organised by Haus fur Poesie. Thank you so much, and special thanks to Jan Wagner for translating my work. ❤️
June 17, 2025 at 4:28 PM
Love this pic of a wonderful night of poetry in Berlin on Sunday with fellow poets from around the world. Photo by Natalia Reich and event organised by Haus fur Poesie. Thank you so much, and special thanks to Jan Wagner for translating my work. ❤️
Got your tickets yet for the next @writeback.bsky.social on June 26th at @britishlibrary.bsky.social ? Writers talk about themes and issues that preoccupy, inform, haunt & change their creative work. It’s a unique format from the ace brains of @aanaxagorou.bsky.social and Tom Macandrew and it WORKS.
June 17, 2025 at 8:22 AM
Got your tickets yet for the next @writeback.bsky.social on June 26th at @britishlibrary.bsky.social ? Writers talk about themes and issues that preoccupy, inform, haunt & change their creative work. It’s a unique format from the ace brains of @aanaxagorou.bsky.social and Tom Macandrew and it WORKS.
‘To believe / in kindness, you must ignore the man on the train /
using an extra seat for his sticky chicken wings…’ - this and other dubious ‘life advice’ from my notebook.
open.substack.com/pub/helenmor...
using an extra seat for his sticky chicken wings…’ - this and other dubious ‘life advice’ from my notebook.
open.substack.com/pub/helenmor...
'Mostly, we don't want to harm each other.'
Another peek inside my notebook for paid subscribers
open.substack.com
June 9, 2025 at 2:02 PM
‘To believe / in kindness, you must ignore the man on the train /
using an extra seat for his sticky chicken wings…’ - this and other dubious ‘life advice’ from my notebook.
open.substack.com/pub/helenmor...
using an extra seat for his sticky chicken wings…’ - this and other dubious ‘life advice’ from my notebook.
open.substack.com/pub/helenmor...
Is poetry sometimes all about ‘sad songs with happy tunes’? What were the first embarrassing cassette singles I bought? And how does my friend Molly have such great ideas while deadlifting at 7am?! All these questions and more….
open.substack.com/pub/helenmor...
open.substack.com/pub/helenmor...
Sad songs with happy tunes
On poetry and energetic moping
open.substack.com
June 5, 2025 at 4:24 PM
Is poetry sometimes all about ‘sad songs with happy tunes’? What were the first embarrassing cassette singles I bought? And how does my friend Molly have such great ideas while deadlifting at 7am?! All these questions and more….
open.substack.com/pub/helenmor...
open.substack.com/pub/helenmor...
Reposted by Helen Mort
If you missed Roy McFarlane in conversation with @helenmort.bsky.social last week at Manchester Poetry Library, you can watch/listen back here:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuNQ...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuNQ...
www.youtube.com
June 2, 2025 at 9:39 AM
If you missed Roy McFarlane in conversation with @helenmort.bsky.social last week at Manchester Poetry Library, you can watch/listen back here:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuNQ...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuNQ...