Ella Frears' wry, vivid debut collection, shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection and the T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry: updated edition includes a new essay and a new previously unpublished poem
28th July 2025
Paperback
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Summary
Ella Frears' wry, vivid debut collection, shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection and the T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry: updated edition includes a new essay and a new previously unpublished poem
Description
A Poetry Book Society Recommendation
Shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection Shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize for PoetryUpdated edition, with a new poem and a new essay by Ella, on poetry and process'Fizzing with insistent energy . . . full of crystalline images and metaphors . . . Frears is excellent on sexual politics, the end of girlhood' Guardian Ella Frears's debut is a collection of wry, vivid poems whose power lies in their intimacy. They are as insistent as they are circumspect, drawing close to the reader's ear and bringing them into confidence. The engine of Shine, Darling is one of strength, of fortitude in confronting and surviving the world, of a lifted-chin audacity - 'There was pain,' the speaker allows, 'but it was not new pain.' Frears's work is world-weathered rather than world-weary, delighted by service stations, fucking on bins in Cornwall, in constant communion with the moon. It lives for the power-play of people, of the pull of the sea, the smoky air - 'Stormy, sticky with flies' - and tangled underbrush where the land ends. Her characters test each other, experimenting with the boundaries of physical violence, of punishment, of traps, all the while drawing the reader into a complicity that gives these poems all their daring, electrifying muscularity. In Shine, Darling, the desire to expose and disclose wrestles with defence and defiance. The result is exhilarating, a 'glorious full-bodied' debut collection with the draw of an adamant tide.Critic Reviews
Fizzing with insistent energy... full of crystalline images and metaphors.... Frears is excellent on sexual politics, the end of girlhood Guardian
Frears' work is ideal for poetry newbies - the intriguing narration will immediately draw you in. She splices humour with thought-provoking imagery and Fleabag-style talk-to-camera moments that will make you feel seen Stylist Magazine
This poet is a bit special. She's exciting, a bit scary and sort of brilliant -- Frank Skinner
Uncompromising, intelligent, surprising, accessible and sharp . . . These lyric poems have a clarity and straightforwardness that only a special kind of attention, and a certain kind of fearlessness can achieve Mark Waldron
About the Author
Ella Frears is a poet and artist based in London. Her debut collection, Shine, Darling, (Offord Road Books, 2020) was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and was shortlisted for both the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, and the T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry. Her latest pamphlet I AM THE MOTHER CAT written as part of her residency at John Hansard Gallery is out with Rough Trade Books (2021). In 2022, Ella was named first ever Poet in Residence for the Dartington Trust's grade II listed Gardens, selected by Alice Oswald. She is a trustee and editor for Magma Poetry and has been Poet in Residence for the National Trust, Tate Britain, The John Hansard Gallery, K6 Gallery, SPUD (the Observatory), conservation organisation Back from the Brink, and was poet in residence at Royal Holloway University physics department, writing about the Cassini Space Mission. In 2023 Ella was Creative Fellow at Exeter University working with the Maritime Environmental History Department, and is currently the Royal Literary Fund Fellow for the Courtauld Institute of Art.
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28th July 2025
