A poet and novelist has said she is “absolutely thrilled” to have been named the first poet laureate of a long-running mountain festival.
Helen Mort, who has been involved in the festival for years, said she did a “little jump for joy” when she found out she had been selected as the inaugural laureate at Kendal Mountain Festival.
The festival has been running since 1980, while a concurrent book festival is celebrating its 10th year.
As the poet laureate, Mort will create and organise book festival events and write a festival poem, as well as running the first children’s poetry competition for schools in north-west England, focusing on mountains, nature, wildlife and the outdoors.
“Kendal is my favourite festival,” said Mort, who won the Boardman Tasker award for mountain literature in 2022.
“It’s just a fantastic commitment to the arts and the mountain arts, which I think is really important and really quite rare in terms of programming.”
Mort said she was especially excited to get involved in the schools poetry competition as she had found her confidence while taking part in a similar initiative.
“It was through competitions for young people that I first got recognised as a poet when I was at school,” she said.
“I started writing really young, and it completely changed the course of my life to have that recognition and that engagement, and the idea that that writers who were published were taking me seriously.”
Kendal Mountain Festival’s book festival director Paul Scully said: “Over the years we’ve had the odd bit of poetry, but we really want to bring poetry back into the festival to sit alongside all our non-fiction and bits of fiction as well.
“Helen has been an integral member of the festival, sharing her talent, creativity and excellence in creative writing and poetry for many years.”
Credit: BBC
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