Helen Mort

I’m hosting this in conversation event with brilliant Mai Serhan tomorrow at 11am, registration via the link: rise.mmu.ac.uk/activity/i-c...

Unclassified - Helen Mort's Listening Chair - BBC Sounds Elizabeth Alker invites poet Helen Mort to pick a track that transports her

It was wonderful to do this ‘listening chair’ for Elizabeth Alker recently and talk about John Grant but - more importantly - this episode of Unclassified features musical gorgeousness from Sheffield…. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Poems that make things happen Online poetry workshops designed to make you think, bring you joy, make you a better reader and writer AND fit in with your busy schedule.

I’m doing some short & sweet online poetry workshops over the coming weeks, first ones are this Friday. Would be lovely to have your company if anyone would like to join! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/poems-that...

Poems that make things happen Online poetry workshops designed to make you think, bring you joy, make you a better reader and writer AND fit in with your busy schedule.

Online poetry workshops with Helen Mort? Yes please!

Poems that make things happen. One off or book the whole series - 1 hour sessions of creativity.
@helenmort.bsky.social
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/poems-that...

Come for the whales, stay for the poetry I'm letting you inside my notebook

In a masterclass on Sunday, someone asked if I would consider sharing my drafting process. So I had a go! open.substack.com/pub/helenmor...

In Disko Bay 'The kids were busy getting on with things, / Playing the games that count for everything.'

open.substack.com/pub/helenmor...

It's impossible to capture all the events of 2025 from CPW in one image, but here's a snap shot of some of the brilliant things our members have been involved with this year. Including @helenmort.bsky.social Andrew Michael Hurley, Nikolai Duffy, Rachel Lichtenstein & Jean Sprackland.

My Christmas jumper is ON. My silly festive writing prompt is free for all to access on Substack! open.substack.com/pub/helenmor...

A joy to interview Martin Parr yesterday at @mcrlitfest.bsky.social

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.

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...

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…

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

Turn like a leaf On becoming 40

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...

can we not all have composter syndrome instead. a desire to mulch.

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

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...

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 Saturday poem How charming - to exist where nothing seeks / to kill us

A new poem about being ‘safe’. open.substack.com/pub/helenmor...

Thank you very much indeed Adam!

Man holding a copy of ‘Dad vs. Dad’ 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.

Annie Dillard, Melissa Febos, Audre Lorde, poetry & weasels. helenmort.substack.com/p/ecstatic-d...

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...

Been enjoying an early read of this brilliant book published by @andotherstories.bsky.social - www.andotherstories.org/dreaming-of-...

'We were too good at that game' Secret audience, silence & John Berger on surveillance

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...

'When you've set the world on fire / there will still be herons' Another peek inside my notebook

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...

'Into the tunnels of error like a rat terrier' On being wrong

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

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...

'How I missed predatory animals and the fear of being eaten." Poetry & rewilding, animism & the erotic

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...

An unlived life, eleven pebbles in Fairytales and time: another peek inside my notebook

Fairytales, time, trails of breadcrumbs and pebbles. open.substack.com/pub/helenmor...

Poetry Reading Series: Hannah Copley and Isabelle Galleymore in conversation, 19 Jun 2025 Reading, Manchester Poetry Library

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. ❤️