Poems from Cornwall - a land shaped by sea
- info819852
- Sep 30
- 6 min read
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.
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
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
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.’
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: 24th 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.
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.
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
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
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