In her debut collection of poetry, Bebe Ashley spins gold from the detritus of the internet. A landscape often depicted as a wasteland is illuminated in poems that explore celebrity, obsession, sexuality, coming of age, and that charismatic enigma, Harry Styles.
Inspired by sources as diverse as Styles's track listings, Scandi webseries Skam, and One Direction newsletters, Ashley spins us across continents on a tour of the surreal highs and absurd lows of celebrity culture. These are poems of youth and yearning, yet they're suffused with the hard-won wisdom that the communities we build can be as meaningful as the families we're born into.
Perceptive, witty, and exuberant, Gold Light Shining introduces an essential new voice; one that captures how pop culture's Technicolor joy disrupts our greyscale world.
Praise for Gold Light Shining:
'This is a kaleidoscopic book, full of its own light, its prisms, its beautiful forms.' - Stephen Sexton
'Lush and dizzying, these are poems of longing and enchantment stitched with flashes of beauty: poems of yellow silk trousers, secrets, blue eyes, and "the low snarl of midnight skies.' - Doireann Ni Ghriofa
'A lush mixtape of love poems to an artist, his influences and to pop music itself.' - Claire Askew