Division Street

Helen Mort is among the brightest stars in the sparkling new constellation of young British poets -- Carol Ann Duffy Outstanding There's a confidence and wit that's rare in a first book, but underlying it all is the bedrock of the north of England, its landscapes and stories. These are poems of passion, risk, tenderness and power -- Michael Symmons Roberts, winner of the Forward Prize 2013 Theres been a buzz around Helen Mort for a while, and her debut, Division Street, doesnt disappoint -- Suzi Feay * Independent * An excellent first poetry collection -- lucid, intelligent, politically aware, and loyal to the landscape that inspired it. -- Blake Morrison * Guardian Picks of the Year * Mort is a fast-rising star of British poetry marked by a gritty urban lyricism and a terrific rhythmic vitality * i * A poet of exceptional talent, with a strong clear voice, a sure sense of metre and a poetic sensibility which has an unshakeable attachment to the real world. * Herald * Although Helen Mort is just 28, it's surprising that Division Street is her first full collection -- so frequently and impressively does her work appear in magazines and competitions... It's a brilliant debut. -- Bill Greenwell * Independent * A first class first full-length collection * Tribune * Gritty, witty, stylish and totally memorable. Division Street is a book which has something important to say, addressing a wide range of topics with novelty and intelligence. * John Glenday * The beauty of her debut collection is partly the sense that it has been written against the clock. Every poem is on the move... the style is satisfyingly Orwellian -- no long words where a shorter one would serve. Nor is she a poetic detective assisting with mysteries. She knows when to let be and let go. -- Kate Kellaway * Observer *

Helen Mort was born in Sheffield in 1985, and grew up in nearby Chesterfield. Five times winner of the Foyle Young Poets Award, she received an Eric Gregory Award in 2007 and won the Manchester Young Writer Prize in 2008. Her first collection, Division Street (2013), was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize and Costa Poetry Award, and won the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize. In 2014, she was named as a 'Next Generation Poet', the prestigious accolade announced only once every ten years, recognising the 20 most exciting new poets from the UK and Ireland. No Map Could Show Them (2016), her second collection, about women and mountaineering, was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. Helen has been the Wordsworth Trust Poet in Residence and the Derbyshire Poet Laureate and was named one of the RSL's 40 under 40 Fellows in 2018. She is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University and lives in Sheffield. Black Car Burning was her first novel, and A Line Above the Sky is her first work of narrative memoir.