Helen Mort reflects on identity, place, and the intersections of human experience in her poetry.

📖 Read her interview:
https://thebrokenspine.co.uk/2021/03/31/dog-ear-feature-interview-with-helen-mort/

#PoetryOfPlace #HelenMort

Today's poem:

Shetland
- by Helen Mort

Wind-whittled, turned on the sea’s lathe too long,
built by a craftsman who can’t leave it alone:
the trees scoured off, the houses pared down
to their stones, the animals less skin than bone.

We walk to Windhoose, find a barn even the ghosts
have left, a sheep’s spine turning on a string,
a name reduced to nothing but it’s sound.
Our silences become the better part of us.

#shetland #poetry #landscape #HelenMort #scotland #archipelago #silence