Katrina Naomi and Helen Mort’s poetic collaboration – Same But Different – published by Hazel Press on 30 September is a bestseller at the London Review Bookshop for the second week running. Same But Different is available from the London Review Bookshop, and other indie bookshops, and from Katrina’s website (where Katrina can also sign the book, should you wish).

Writing about Same But Different, Hazel Press say: Ted Hughes once wrote: ‘Poetry is a universal language in which we can all hope to meet’. Through a time of separation, isolation and uncertainty, during the UK lockdown of 2020, two poets, Katrina Naomi and Helen Mort started collaborating on a project, Same But Different. It began as a way to reach out to each other and keep writing during these strange, stagnant times, sending writing prompts and visual images from Penzance to Sheffield and Sheffield to Penzance. They had no thoughts of publication, only experimentation and enjoying the process. Like Wang Wei and Pei Di’s, Wang River Collaboration, their poems soon started to speak to one another and are published without attribution. This creative thread has been with them both through the labyrinth of this last year and continues still.  Same But Different offers a year of poetic dialogue, friendship and sisterhood.

One thing to note about Same But Different. None of the poems are attributed. You’ll have to guess who wrote which poem. Neither Katrina nor Helen are going to let slip who wrote which!