This poem addresses gravity, gender prejudice and potential. The speaker poses the rhetorical question whether institutionalized doubts, norms and rules have slowed her down – and if the world will catch up with the new role of 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.

Poem · United Kingdom · 2016