The Poetry Society

Helen Mort talks to Maurice Riordan about writing and the problem of observation; Jeremy Deller’s Battle of Orgreave and her poem ‘Scab’; writing on the run; neuroscience, Norman MacCaig, John Burnside and Paul Muldoon, and how writing her first novel is both similar to and different from writing poems. Helen is a five times winner of Foyle Young Poets of the Year. Her first collection, Division Street (Chatto & Windus) was shortlisted for the Costa Prize and the T.S. Eliot Prize and, in 2014, won the Fenton Aldeburgh Prize. She also reads her poem ‘Ablation’.