The poems of Helen Mort's second collection offer an unforgettable 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.
Distinctive and courageous, these are poems of passion and precipices, of edges and extremes. No Map Could Show Them confirms Helen Mort's position as one of the finest young poets at work today.
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You are very successful but you have rocks in your chest, skin-coloured sandstone wedged where your breasts should be. MOUNTAIN
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(@vintagebooks, 2 June 2016, ebook, 90 pages, borrowed from @natpoetrylib via @OverDriveInc)
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I've enjoyed other work by the poet so was looking forward to No Map Could Show Them. I really enjoyed the poems in this collection. They are well-written, rich and varied in their use of imagery and style. The poems all focus on the achievements of women, some well know historical figures and others not so much. This is an impressive collection.
