Helen Mort

''Euripides said "better a serpent than a stepmother." For a moment, you like the idea of being a single line, winding around everything you touch. A vine.''''Brave, graceful and absolutely vital - Mort shoulders away the old trope of the stepmother and replaces her with a host of humane women'' SARAH HALL, author of HelmWhen a new relationship casts poet Helen Mort in the role of stepmother, she embarks on a personal quest for understanding; moving across verse and personal essay, from fairytale to modern blended family.Turning a bold and inventive gaze on this neglected dimension of female experience, these are candid dispatches from the shifting terrain of the modern family. As playful as it is moving, STEPMOTHER radiates Mort’s signature empathetic warmth, but with the bite of truth.Mort interleaves ravishing fragments of lyric essay with gothic flights into verse that draw us deep into the woods of upon-a-time, and back, changed, into the now. Groundbreaking and transformative, tender and uncompromising, STEPMOTHER has much to teach us about female power and the fear it still provokes, our openness to change, and the surprising shapes love can take.''I was enchanted by her blend of generous lyric and furious cultural critique. A spell for seeing differently’ CLARE POLLARD, author of THE MODERN FAIRIES

Slipcase 2nd edition of this delightful, moving VERVE Poetry bestseller.In November 2021, Helen Mort’s father had two life altering strokes.Dad vs. Dad is an account of the aftermath of those strokes. In this hardback multi-media pamphlet length collection, Helen Mort combines lyric poetry with visual-text pieces involving erasure poetry made from working with one of her father''s favourite chess books. The effects of a stroke and stroke recovery are documented through the language of strategy and struggle.‘In chess, a move requires a response (until it doesn’t, like the game of life). Check. Check mate. Erasing elements of an existing text, I set arbitrary rules for myself. There is an arrangement here, a sequence, an attempt to find a pattern. Grappling with a text is easy. Grappling with your own altered body and brain is hard. These pages do not reflect my dad’s experience of stroke or my mum’s experience of supporting him in ongoing recovery. They are just a series of movements. They take the time they take (until time takes them).’ – Helen, in her introduction

'This book is beautiful' Emma Jane Unsworth Climbing gives you the illusion of being in control, just for a while, the tantalising sense of being able to stay one move ahead of death. Helen Mort has always been drawn to the thrill and risk of climbing: the tension between human and rockface, and the climber's powerful connection to the elemental world. But when she becomes a mother for the first time, she finds herself re-examining her relationship with both the natural world and herself, as well as the way the world views women who aren't afraid to take risks. 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.