The speaker of this poem negotiates the relation of the (female) self and its environment using the complex metaphor of a mountain. Helen Mort’s second collection of poetry “No Map Could Show Them” offers the readers a variety of perspectives on mountaineering, the human body and gender roles. Her poems negotiate proximity and distance, past […]

The speaker of the poem follows an engineer walking home from their night shift. Most of the scenery remains in the dark except of the engineer and his lamp – traveling alone, while “the rails sing quietly […] till he comes home.” Helen Mort’s second collection of poetry “No Map Could Show Them” offers the […]

The speaker of the poem records Lil’s answer regarding gender prejudices and discrimination against women. Helen Mort’s second collection of poetry “No Map Could Show Them” offers the readers a variety of perspectives on mountaineering, the human body and gender roles. Her poems navigate proximity and distance, past and present, edges and extremes.

These lines reinforce the value of inner beauty, female courage and self-confidence while scrutinising gender clichés and given social standards. The speaker presents herself not as pretty, cute or “built to fit a fashion model’s size” (line 2), but as strong, proud, mysterious, in one word: phenomenal. Rejecting gender stereotypes, the strong voice encourages and […]

A prototypical modernist short story with complex metaphors and imagery. Somewhere in northern Spain an American man and a young girl are having drinks at a bar in a train station. They are waiting for a train to Barcelona, where she is going to have an abortion. She seems to be afraid of the procedure, […]