Poems from Cornwall - a land shaped by sea

Written by Fi Read and Ella Walsworth-Bell from the Mor Poets Collective, Cornwall, UK

Stand on the shoreline and listen. Out there, beyond and beneath the blue, are words

whispered into water. Words spoken by generations of mariners, adventurers, fishermen and the communities who relied on the sea for their livelihoods. Words that continue to resonate today.

Ella Walsworth-Bell founded the Cornwall-based Mor Poets in 2020 as an artistic response to the vast numbers of women who have taken up sea swimming. "It’s cold out there - why do it?" she asked, along with "Hey, let’s write some poetry together". Mor is the Cornish word for ‘sea’, and the all-female group has since created and published three collections of poetry inspired by the sea, as well as run community poetry workshops and held spoken word events. They continue to write alongside and within their coastal communities, and are currently working on their latest anthology celebrating wild Cornish women.

For this SeaVoice volume, Fi Read’s ekphrastic poetry is inspired by paintings featuring

ordinary Cornish fisherfolk, whose traditional way of life often included speaking their own Celtic language. Fi’s poetry gives kernewek fresh exposure, while the language itself, seen as a symbol of identity and resilience, is undergoing a cultural revival within the county. 

Kernewek even has a specific word to describe the sound of the sea: mordros. Read these poems and hear the ocean calling as tides rise and fall. From seahorses hiding in eelgrass to the linseed coating on smocks, these emerging poetic voices shout like breaking waves on Cornish shores.

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Ella Walsworth-Bell lived on her parents’ sailing boat Silverstones until the age of five. She sailed to the West Indies and back before moving into a tumbledown house in a small village in Cornwall and starting school. Every year, Ella moves aboard her own boat with her children; her poetry explores motherhood and the sea. 

From Sea Life: On Second-hand Sails  

after Sean Borodale 

we come from Essex marshes  

mudflats waiting for the tide 

greenshanks digging bills in 

praying there’s no fog 

we listened to shipping forecasts 

at six pm and midnight 

Dad’s fags glowing  

above the chart table 

a gentle swaying 

of the hull at anchor 

I saw dolphins mid-Atlantic 

the curved back of a humpback whale 

noshed ration packs of bitter chocolate 

biscuits in silver paper 

Silverstones our steel boat  

on a broad reach home 

I didn’t know where home was 

Mum wanted apple trees 

Dad needed shirts and ties 

deck needed a fresh coat of paint 

we dropped hook 

up the Penryn River 

re-built a house  

dropped roof-tacks  

into waist-high grass 

grew raspberries and roses 

the mud in this new creek 

smells of lugworms   

thick as congealed blood 

sticks us to land 

let’s watch the tide rise 

bubbling and oozing 

the flap flap flap 

of swan’s wings 

steady as a gimbled stove 

we are far from Essex 

slit open my chest space 

my heart beats silt-slow 

ragworm-red 

the sun sets the same 

wherever we live 

 © Phil Bennett

 © Phil Bennett

Anchored Just off Falmouth Town 

1 

A boat is a very small place 

in the rain 

thunder-sound of engines  

the Dock's massive piles queening up from a sea-bed of shopping trolleys 

kelp roots, bones 

here we are in town again 

squawk and call of gulls 

someone shouts low tide 

damp cushion under my bum 

2 

today is grey 

grey as in unshed tears 

some sections of sky thicker 

closer to the sea of masts  

today smells of petrichor 

today could be a doughnut day, a croissant day 

a kinder to my children day 

we don't know how long we share this space 

my granny would have said 

3 

further over in the grey sea 

a cormorant dives 

his back a rounded n  

perhaps he will be lucky 

 © Phil Bennett

No Anchoring 

We are eelgrass. We sway in the current, 

surge with the tidal ebb and flow. 

We’ve been anchored here for generations; 

yet the roar of your propellers -  

the bite of steel flukes and the grinning chain 

carves us to shreds. 

There is sunshine in these shallows. 

Seahorses snuggle their fry, 

tiny tails spooning our stems. 

Your own young are squealing; 

paddling with outsize feet,  

startle pipefish, who flee like arrows. 

When the moon rises,  

Dinoflagellates dance the fandango.  

Cuttlefish ripple happiness. 

Inch and crunch, your chains 

scour us naked, strip us of shelter, rag our dresses. 

Bowing sideways, we cry. 

Morning comes and crabs bury themselves in the deserted sands.  

Rays ghost away, soaring across shadowlands. 

Then the hauling begins. After your coffee, 

anchors hack their last graves, 

roll taut to snarling winches.  

You yachtsmen have had your weekend fun. 

Our forests are scattered to the ocean, to your foredeck. 

You recognise our corpses. ‘Oh look – Eelgrass.’ 

© Alice Bray

© Alice Bray

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Fi Read grew up in Australia but caught her first wave in Cornwall. She swims, surfs, snorkels, and wishes the water was warmer. After sailing from Flushing to the Canaries, she’s also keen for more ocean adventuring. Nurse, activist, life model, bartender and mum, Fi squeezes in time to write when she can. 

What the papers say: 24^th October 1851 

Helluva long way Newlyn - London

‘specially on foot. Back bent double

willow creel a heavy crown containing

rumours: turbot for Queen Victoria

grievances for the Lord Mayor, she’d 

done waiting for a national pension. 

Too poor for stagecoach or steamship

at 84, Mary’s exploits made The Times

Cornish Telegraph, Royal Cornwall Gazette. 

5 weeks 300 miles: drops in the ocean 

compared to a lifetime trudging sands

hawking fish all round the district.

Mary Kelynack, jowster by trade

hard-grafter by birth. Hauling pilchards 

from boat to shore to be cleaned, gutted

salted, pressed in oak barrels or laid

in stinking cowals: pillars of community  

fishwives kept families, industry afloat.

Celebrity Mary died as she lived

boghosek, while postcards, paintings 

even songs proved Breadwinners: 

black felted bonnets, leather head-straps

heavy cotton towsers, coloured shawls

worn with pride and tradition, backalong.

Anon Mary Callinick [Kelynack] © Penlee House Gallery & Museum, Penzance

Smock 

sail cloth cut simple and plain                  sewn T-shaped with wide neck

collar stand up or front slit and            flat slick coat of linseed protects

from sea spray cold wind driving rain

when hauling in nets up on deck

pockets for warming ice hands

a garment that’s earned deep respect

no buttons no pretensions ‘til they

caught the attention of artists round

Newlyn flaunting pyskador uniform

workwear rebranded bohemian

sold on Etsy in Regatta and Next 

still worn by old sea dogs gone fishin’

sure as time flows and tides ebb.

Walter Langley, 1852-1922. Breadwinners, 1896. Watercolour, 23 x 43 cm. © Penlee House Gallery & Museum, Penzance

William Wainwright 1855 – 1931. Mental Arithmetic, c.1883. Watercolour. © Penlee House Gallery & Museum, Penzanze. Purchased in 2023 by the Friends of Penlee House.

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Cornish glossary: 

helluva         extremely, very

jowster         hawker or seller, usually on foot. Newlyn fishwives were called fishjowsters

cowal            large wicker basket, commonly used for carrying fish

boghosek      poor, no money, destitute

towser          a course apron

backalong     in times gone by, long ago, a period in the past or more traditional way of life

pyskador       a fisherman

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Notes:

In the late 1800s and early 1900s artists travelled down to Cornwall for the clarity of light, cheap lodgings and a more rustic, simpler way of life. A burgeoning art colony known as the Newlyn School, pioneered by Walter Langley, were fascinated by the lives of local fishermen (and women) working at sea, as well as in and around the harbours and nearby villages. Painting en plain air, they had plentiful models to choose from at inexpensive rates, like fishwives in distinctive traditional garb and fishermen wearing practical, durable smocks. Immortalised in watercolour and oils, their hardship and suffering the price paid for fine art.

Read more from the Mor Poets:

Morvoren (2022) the poetry of sea swimming.

Mordardh (2023) surf poetry.*

Mordros (2024) sound of the sea.*

*Shortlisted for Holyer an Gof poetry awards in 2024 and 2025 respectively.

Books stocked by: Cornish Authors Bookshop – Terrace Gallery

Cornwall www.terracegallery.co.uk/collections/books-by-local-authors