A Poetry Book Society Recommendation
Shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection
Shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry
Updated 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.
Shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection
Shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry
Updated 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.
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Reviews
Fizzing with insistent energy... full of crystalline images and metaphors.... Frears is excellent on sexual politics, the end of girlhood
Ella Frears burst on the scene in 2020 with Shine, Darling: poems that were bold, funny and sexually frank
Shine, Darling explores the depths of sensation and identity. Its luminous poems dance between public spaces, from motorway services, where the speaker awaits the 'pink voila' of pregnancy tests, to the roofs above dinner parties where they trap lovers
Frears's poems are places of feverishness, extra-sensitivity, and suggestion . . . They lightly take your pulse, then ask why it's accelerating
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
Shine, Darling is a startling debut, as provocative as it is playful and tender, navigating a wild, modern terrain touching often on female desire and glazed with dark terror. These poems are uncompromising and intelligent, fresh and newly disruptive
Shine, Darling is one of the best debuts of recent years
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
She writes with such fecundity and truth I think I shapeshifted
This poet is a bit special. She's exciting, a bit scary and sort of brilliant