Shine, Darling
(Paperback)
Publishing Details
Shine, Darling
By (Author) Ella Frears
Little, Brown Book Group
Corsair
29th July 2025
1st May 2025
United Kingdom
Classifications
Physical Properties
Paperback
96
Width 122mm, Height 196mm, Spine 14mm
98g
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.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 *
Author Bio
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.
