Clare Shaw on BBC Radio 3 & Books of the Year 2022
‘Clare Shaw’s Towards a General Theory of Love was a standout for me. Beautiful, deceptively simple poems of huge weight and power. I love them for their wit and for the deep underlying emotion. Wonderful book.’ – Carole Bromley (Poetry Society Books of the Year 2022)
Towards a General Theory of Love, the fourth collection by Clare Shaw was published by Bloodaxe in May 2022. It won a Northern Writers' Award for work in progress. Clare's brilliant joint live-streamed launch reading of 31 May 2022 is now on YouTube, and can be seen below.
Towards a General Theory of Love follows Flood, Clare Shaw's eye-witness account of the devastating floods in Britain left whole swathes of the country submerged, including their home town of Todmorden, but ripples out from there. Intimately interwoven with the breakdown of a relationship, flooding serves as a powerful metaphor for wider experiences of loss, destruction and recovery.
ONLINE REVIEW COVERAGE
Joanna Bourke blog, online 7 March 2024
An excellent close reading of Clare Shaw’s fourth collection Towards a General Theory of Love was featured by Joanna Bourke on her blog on 7 March 2024.
‘Towards a General Theory of Love inhabits an aqueous space, rocked by grief, anxi-ety, and despair, but also the promise of tenderness and love. Survival is not enough; poetry offers healing [...] Towards a General Theory of Love are poems to read and reread, to think about, and read again. They are a gift of love and grief, both of which are lakes that we ‘will walk by forever’.’ – Joanna Bourke
https://www.joannabourke.com/post/clare-shaw-s-incredible-poems-in-towards-a-general-theory-of-love
POETRY BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2023
Created to Read, My Top 5 Books of 2023 - Poetry, online 27 December 2023
Clare Shaw’s 2022 collection Towards a General Theory of Love was one of 5 poetry books chosen by Rachel Carney for her Created to Read blog best books feature of 27 December 2023.
'I am rarely able to say that I liked every single poem in a collection, but this book is an exception to that rule. Shaw’s poems explore the complexities of grief, trauma and love, often through the figure of ‘Monkey’. Shaw’s monkey figure represents the controversial psychology experiments conducted by Harry Harlow on baby monkeys in the 1950s, which proved that we need care, contact and love to survive.' – Rachel Carney, Created to Read (My Top 5 Books of 2023 - Poetry)
https://createdtoread.com/my-top-5-books-of-2023-poetry/
CLARE SHAW ON BBC RADIO 3’s THE VERB
The Verb, BBC Radio 3, Friday 14 July 2023, 10 pm
Clare Shaw took part in a special edition of The Verb recorded in front of an audience at The Trades Club in Hebden Bridge on 6 July. Clare was talking about bogs and peatland and read two beautiful new poems ‘The Healing of Little Woolden Moss’ and ‘Love Song of Astley Moss’. These will be included in their next collection:
‘Ian McMillan presents Radio 3's The Verb from the Trades Club in Hebden Bridge, North Yorkshire. He's joined by poet Clare Shaw whose poetry extols the poetic possibilities of peat bogs and moss; Ben and David Crystal whose new book Everyday Shakespeare offers us a quotation from the bard for every day of the year; Jimmy Andrex offers a meeting place between music and poetry and singer Emily Portman and musician Rob Harbron sing the words of Irish poet Louis MacNeice.’
Listen via BBC Sounds here. Clare Shaw features from 11:00
In 2021, Clare Shaw was Carbon Landscape Poet in Residence for Lancashire Wildlife Trust. A film of Clare reading poems written during the Residency was released as part of Manchester Literature Festival in 2021 and is still available. The film also included a conversation between Clare Shaw and fellow poet Helen Mort about the main themes of Clare’s poetry. They discussed Clare’s third collection Flood, as well as their fourth collection Towards a General Theory of Love. Their commissioned new carbon landscape poems will be published in a future collection.
https://www.manchesterliteraturefestival.co.uk/events/clare-shaw-39678
Breakfast, BBC Radio 3, Friday 10 February 2023 - The Friday Poem
Clare Shaw's poem ‘Rhosymedre: Prelude on a Welsh Hymn’ from Towards a General Theory of Love was featured as The Friday Poem on BBC Radio 3's Breakfast on 10 February 2023, followed by Vaughan Williams' piece that inspired the poem. The poem was beautifully and very movingly read by Clare Shaw.
Presenter Petroc Trelawny introduced Clare Shaw's fourth collection, from which the poem is taken, by quoting from Kathryn Bevis's books of the year comment in Poetry News - see below.
The programme is no longer available, but details are on BBC Sounds here. Petroc introduced the poem at 1:24:33.
The original recording of Clare Shaw reading ‘Rhosymedre: Prelude on a Welsh Hymn’ was taken from the BBC Radio 3's The Essay of 10 October 2022 and can still be heard via the link below. Clare was one of five writers and artists not normally associated with classical music invited to discuss a specific example of Vaughan Williams’ work to which they have a personal connection, and why it speaks to them. Near the end of the essay, Clare read ‘Rhosymedre: Prelude on a Welsh Hymn’ from their fourth collection Towards a General Theory of Love. The programme was a BBC Radio 4 Pick of the Week.
Listen to The Essay: Clare Shaw: Vaughan Williams: Belonging via BBC Sounds here.
POETRY BOOKS OF 2022 FEATURES
The Poetry Society asked 31 of their Poetry Review contributors, staff and friends to give a book of the year for 2022. Some recommendations appeared in print in Poetry News, with some additional choices appearing online.
‘Clare Shaw’s Towards a General Theory of Love was a standout for me. Beautiful, deceptively simple poems of huge weight and power. I love them for their wit and for the deep underlying emotion. Wonderful book.’ – Carole Bromley (Poetry Society Books of the Year 2022)
‘Clare Shaw’s Towards a General Theory of Love is a large-hearted and unflinching exploration both of love and the desolation felt at its lack or loss. Exquisitely crafted, these poems inhabit a range of forms, each as fitting and natural to their theme as skin is to flesh.’ – Kathryn Bevis, Poetry News (Christmas Reading)
Read the online feature here.
Expert Reviews, Best poetry books you can buy in 2022, 3 October 2022
Two Bloodaxe titles were chosen by Simon Williams for his best poetry books of 2022 feature. They were Moniza Alvi’s book-length poetry sequence Fairoz and Clare Shaw’s fourth collection Towards a General Theory of Love. Read the full feature here.
‘As the title suggests, this is a book of love poems, but more an exploration of aspects of love; familial, romantic and how Clare Shaw feels about herself… An early piece is entitled “This is a very small poem”, but there are no small poems in this amazingly real and open study of love.’ – Simon Williams, Expert Reviews (Best poetry books you can buy in 2022)
BBC RADIO 3 INTERVIEW WITH CLARE SHAW & DAVID CONSTANTINE
The Verb: Ghost Writers, BBC Radio 3, Friday 9 December 2022, 10 pm
Bloodaxe poets Clare Shaw and David Constantine were Ian McMillan’s guests on BBC Radio 3’s The Verb on 9 December. Clare was reading from their latest collection Towards a General Theory of Love and David from his new book of short stories Rivers of the Unspoilt World (Comma Press, November, 2022).
Clare read their prose poem ‘Letter to My Mother’ from Towards a General Theory of Love. Later on, Clare read a new poem ‘Haunted’, which will be included in their next collection.
At the top of the programme, all the guests were invited to speak about poets who have influenced their work. Clare talked about William Blake, and also about fellow guest and Bloodaxe poet David Constantine, whose collection Something for the Ghosts – published nearly 20 years ago – had a great impact on Clare’s writing. David Constantine’s 11th collection Belongings was published in October 2020, not long before he was named as winner of the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry, 2020. Something for the Ghosts (2002) is now included in David Constantine's Collected Poems (2004).
This programme was chosen by Joe Clay for ‘Today’s pick’ in radio for Friday 9 December in The Times of 3 December and again on 9 December. It was also chosen by Clair Woodward as one of her radio ‘Picks of the Day’ for 9 December in The Sunday Times.
‘Constantine’s sixth collection of poetry, Something for the Ghosts (published in 2002), explored themes of death and memory.’ – Joe Clay, The Times
‘Ian McMillan explores the ghostly presences and phantoms of predecessors, literary or not, which hover in and around all writing. In poetry and stories how do we seek through the spectres of time and memory to conjure invocations of people lost to us, and to understand the importance of human connections through time and space? With David Constantine, Denise Riley, Andrew Taylor and Clare Shaw. David Constantine's new book Rivers of the Unspoilt World interweaves fictional characters and events with the real to create new ways of seeing and connecting our past, present and possible futures. Denise Riley's latest collection Lurex is a medita-tion on the timelessness of time, in which the past is never really past but is both then and now, haunting, our memories and our futures. Andrew Taylor's collection Northangerland conjures the ghost of Bramwell Bronte to rewrite his poetry for the modern reader. Clare Shaw's Towards a General Theory of Love seeks to summon the Spirit of those we have loved and lost.’
Clare was the first writer interviewed. David featured from 22:41, and again at 29:35. Listen via BBC Sounds here.
BBC RADIO 3’s THE ESSAY WITH CLARE SHAW - a BBC Radio 4 Pick of the Week Top Choice
The Essay: Clare Shaw: Vaughan Williams: Belonging, BBC Radio 3, Monday 10 October 2022, 10.45pm
Poet and dramatist Clare Shaw wrote and narrated a powerful and beautiful piece about Vaughan Williams for BBC Radio 3’s The Essay on 10 October. Clare was one of five writers and artists not normally associated with classical music invited to discuss a specific example of Vaughan Williams’ work to which they have a personal connection, and why it speaks to them.
Near the end of the essay, Clare read ‘Rhosymedre: Prelude on a Welsh Hymn’ from their fourth collection Towards a General Theory of Love.
'Clare considers the role that Vaughan Williams’ setting to music of the Welsh hymn Rhosymedre has played in their life. They first played it as a teenager on the viola, for the Burnley Youth Orchestra. It symbolised an expression of beauty, love and hope, a sense of voice and connection to place and possibility... It is also that rare moment in music where the viola gets to carry the melody. Then, in Clare’s fifties, when their mother (a cellist) died, the piece became a conduit for overwhelming grief, a way of holding the horrific and sublime experience of being present at the moment of death. Clare came home after their mother had died and played Rhosymedre, then wrote this poem about her and the music.’
Listen via BBC Sounds here.
Clare's reading of ‘Rhosymedre: Prelude on a Welsh Hymn’ from The Essay was featured as The Friday Poem on BBC Radio 3's Breakfast on 10 February 2023.
Pick of the Week, BBC Radio 4, Sunday 16 October 2022, 6.15pm
Clips from Benjamin Zephaniah’s ‘terrific interview’ with Ian McMillan on The Verb and Clare Shaw’s The Essay on Vaughan Williams, both from BBC Radio 3, were chosen by radio producer Geoff Bird for his Pick of the Week on 16 October. He also chose the ‘spare, simple and immensely rewarding gem’, the Radio 4 feature Letters to a Young Woman Poet with poets Penelope Shuttle, Grace Nichols and Gillian Clarke, and played a clip from one of the segments with the latter. Clare Shaw’s Radio 3 Essay was his top pick:
‘It’s a stunning piece of writing and reading and feeling, with Vaughan Williams at its heart, but touching on so much else, including culture and class and the redemptive power of music.’ – Geoff Bird on BBC Radio 4, choosing Clare Shaw’s Radio 3 Essay on Vaughan Williams as his top Pick of the Week
Letters to a Young Woman Poet with Penelope Shuttle and Grace Nichols is introduced at 7:35, Clare Shaw at 11:03, and Benjamin Zephaniah features from 30:50, opening with a clip of him reading ‘Dis Poetry’.
No longer available on BBC Sounds. Details here.
ONLINE REVIEW COVERAGE
An excellent review of Towards a General Theory of Love features in the February 2023 issue of the online poetry magazine The Lake. Read in full here.
‘As so often in Shaw’s poetry, wild landscapes offer their own compassion and comfort… But this collection also represents a deeply embodied interpretation of love, in its involvement of the whole human person.’ – Hannah Stone, The Lake
A wonderful in-depth review of Clare Shaw's 'shattering new collection' Towards a General Theory of Love is online at The Yorkshire Times here.
A detailed review of Towards a General Theory of Love featured in The Friday Poem on 23 August 2022, available to read online here.
A brilliant four-page review of Towards a General Theory of Love was featured in the Journal of Child Psychotherapy and published online 8 November 2022.
‘As with their previous collections with Bloodaxe, Straight ahead (2006), Head on (2012) and Flood (2018), their fourth collection is unwaveringly direct and often painfully raw and honest; but more than this, it is also beautifully written, with such a palpable sense of community, interconnectedness, humanity and shared experience, that one comes away from reading it feeling emotionally richer and in no way diminished.’ - Charlotte Burton, Journal of Child Psychotherapy
Available online in full for free to the first fifty readers here.
An excellent two-page review of Towards a General Theory of Love was featured in the online edition of the specialist journal Person-Centred & Experiential Psychotherapies on 5 December 2022. Reviewer Brian Levitt ended with the comment: ‘This collection of poetry is also one of the most important books you can hope to find and study if you work with other people or are in training to work with other people as a counselor, psychotherapist or psychologist.’
‘… this volume unfolds as a personal reflection on love that is rich and varied, raw and vulnerable, tender and honest. What is titled as being toward a general theory emerges much more so as a personal and evolving theory that is so real and human that we may then also see and find ourselves in it.’ - Brian E. Levitt, Person-Centered & Experiential Psychotherapies
Read in full online here.
'Towards a General Theory of Love is the fourth collection by Clare Shaw, a much-cherished poet who won a Northern Writers’ Award in 2018. Her searching and magnetic poems hold a clarity of thought as they explore multiple emotional states and perspectives.' - Will Mackie, New Writing North (New & recent poetry from the North, Summer 2022)
IN PRINT REVIEW COVERAGE
'An authentic, strong and searingly honest voice comes through this fourth collection of poems from Clare Shaw, published by Bloodaxe Books. In Towards a General Theory of Love, Shaw explores love from a range of different perspectives, imbued with melancholy, pain, suffering, and hope.' - Jane Broadis, The School Librarian
'Clare Shaw's fourth collection is an exploration of how grief, as the 'negative image of love', colours and changes every aspect of the world... Shaw's particular genius for simile, titles and list-poems are also evident here. The poet's distinctive northern voice resonates through assured rhythm, exquisite rhyme when needed, and the music of lament especially in elegies and memories about their mother.' - Pauline Rowe, Orbis
An excellent two-page review of Clare Shaw’s fourth collection Towards a General Theory of Love was featured in Writing in Education issue 87, Summer 2022.
‘The collection reaches well beyond the bounds of its 58 component parts, feeling by turns like a play, therapy, friend. Indefinable, then, but no matter – it is a triumph.’ - Dawn Gorman, Writing in Education
‘Clare Shaw’s speaker in Towards a General Theory of Love is fittingly eccentric and various. There is rage, playfulness, despair and yearning in this quest for an understanding of our need for attachment at all costs... Throughout these poems, the speaker – never the spokesperson – shows a light touch with dark material. They resist any temptation to instruct, and the lessons learned are all the more valuable for it.’ – Lydia Kennaway, Stand
In print, and partially available online without subscription here.
JOINT LAUNCH EVENT ON 31 MAY 2022
Tuesday 31 May 2022, live-streamed launch reading by Jo Clement, Sarah Wimbush and Clare Shaw
Bloodaxe's joint launch reading by Jo Clement, Sarah Wimbush and Clare Shaw celebrating the publication of their new poetry collections was live-streamed on 31 May 2022, and is now on YouTube. They were reading from and discussing their new collections with the host, Bloodaxe editor Neil Astley, and with each other. All three poets have won Northern Writers' Awards for poems included in these collections.
Jo Clement read first in each set, followed by Sarah Wimbush. They were reading from their first full collections Outlandish and Shelling Peas with My Grandmother in the Gorgiolands. Clare Shaw was reading from their fourth collection, Towards a General Theory of Love. Passionate, mesmerising readings from all three poets, followed by a wonderful discussion during which they drew out the connections between their three books.
MLF FILM WITH CLARE SHAW
Manchester Literature Festival, November 2021
Clare Shaw
Clare Shaw was Carbon Landscape Poet in Residence for Lancashire Wildlife Trust and Manchester Literature Festival. A film of Clare reading new work on location, followed by a conversation with fellow poet Helen Mort about the main themes illuminated through Clare's poetry, featured online as part of Manchester Literature Festival in October 2021, and is still available - video below.
Watch Clare Shaw perform new poems inspired by their time as Carbon Landscape Poet in Residence for Lancashire Wildlife Trust and Manchester Literature Festival earlier this year. Clare reads new work on location, followed by a conversation with fellow poet Helen Mort about the main themes illuminated through Clare's poetry, including the healing of post-industrial landscapes, and their own recent experiences of finding solace and recovery in green spaces. What happens when we engage with nature? How do local wildlife and green spaces shape us – and how do we shape them? Can we reverse environmental damage – and can poetry play a role? They discuss Flood in particular.
Clare Shaw is the author of four poetry collections – Straight Ahead, Head On and Flood. Their fourth collection Towards a General Theory of Love was awarded a Northern Writers' Award and was published by Bloodaxe in May 2022. In 2021 Clare presented and co-wrote Ways to Weather the Storm on BBC Radio4, examining how creativity and art helped the Hebden Bridge community to live with the impact of repeated flooding.
Watch the film here and below.
[11 October 2022]
