- Published: 1 November 2022
- ISBN: 9781784743222
- Imprint: Chatto & Windus
- Format: Trade Paperback
- Pages: 96
- RRP: $37.00
The Illustrated Woman
SHORTLISTED FOR THE FORWARD PRIZE 2022











- Published: 1 November 2022
- ISBN: 9781784743222
- Imprint: Chatto & Windus
- Format: Trade Paperback
- Pages: 96
- RRP: $37.00
Helen Mort's expert control of the line offers us footpaths through the landscape of the body, showing us all the ways we might mark, redeem, protect or fear for both our own and the bodies of others.
Andrew McMillan, author of PHYSICAL
A triumphal collection, that closes with a ritual cleansing and celebration of the naked body, as it should be celebrated... They can be challenging, unsettling poems for a man to read, but that's what makes them such essential reading - these are poems designed to get under your skin, where they belong
John Glenday, author of THE GOLDEN MEAN
The Illustrated Woman bristles with colour and truth. Helen Mort renders the body in desire, shame, love and pain across landscapes to create a dazzling portrait of our own skin as something that belongs only to us
Jessica Andrews, author of SALTWATER
Marvellous and tender poems... beautifully achieved... Mort's poems shine with bright risk throughout
Kate Kellaway, Observer, *Poetry Book of the Month*
Wide-ranging and insightful... These poems are by turns delicate and diamond-hard, with a real flair for a knockout closing line
Dave Coates, Poetry Book Society Autumn 2022 Bulletin
Wildly impressive in its ability to balance its subjects with a questing intelligence without losing a human core
Rishi Dastidar
The Illustrated Woman celebrates the female body... Her deft poetry mesmerises as it troubles
Daljit Nagra, New Statesman, Books of the Year 2022
A wonderful, endlessly re-readable work
Financial Times, *Books of the Year*
Mort's language is visceral, holding space for the complexities of experiencing pain
Guardian, *Books of the Year*
The title sequence is a complex, cohesive and at times dazzling analysis of another kind of writing - that inscribed directly on the poet's skin
Times Literary Supplement