(the launch of Straight Ahead at Nelson's Wine Bar, Hebden Bridge 2006)

"Probably the best, most electrifying new young reader on the circuit" - carol ann duffy 

"extraordinary,

like a leopard walked in, glowing

from the wet night on Back Commercial Street

to lay with me, breaking

all known barriers of reason and place

to be with me”

(from ‘About the arguments we had last year’ in ‘Straight Ahead', Bloodaxe 2006)                                                                                                                                      </span></p><p"Straight

Clare Shaw is a writer based in the North of England, with one poetry collection and several other publications under her belt - and several more on the way.

"Straight Ahead" - Clare's first poetry collection - is firmly located in the social and physical landscape of the North. The poems explore intimacy, loss, fragmentation and delight - existence in all its colours. These are poems which - like the lives and the landscapes they record - are by turn harsh and tender, humorous and bleak. Dynamic, dark, and exactingly detailed, they invite the reader – and listener - into a rich and complex world’. 

Clare is a popular performer of her own work; she was a regular guest at the Manchester Royal Exchange ‘Carol Ann Duffy and Friends’ poetry evenings; and has performed alongside poets including Roy Fisher, Liz Lochead, Lemn Sissay, Brian Patten and Jackie Kay. Her work has been anthologised (Faber 2004, 2007); published in several national journals and newspapers including the Guardian and the Daily Mirror; and has attracted awards including a ‘Forward Prize Highly Commended (2006).

Clare's prose is anthologised in the "Some Girls' Mothers" collection published by Route in 2008: you can see her performing her work on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLB1WdRM9p8

Clare also has a passionate interest in mental health and is the co-director of harm-ed, the self-harm training partnership www.harm-ed.co.uk