Towards a General Theory of Love

Clare Shaw was born in Burnley in 1972. Their first two collections with Bloodaxe were Straight Ahead (2006), which attracted a Forward Prize Highly Commended for Best Single Poem, and Head On (2012), which according to the Times Literary Supplement is 'fierce, memorable and visceral'. Their later collections are Flood (2018), a New Writing North Read Regional title in 2019, and Towards a General Theory of Love (2022) which won a Northern Writers' Award and was a Poetry Society Book of the Year. Their poetry is widely anthologised – including 100 Queer Poems (Penguin Random House, 2022) and the National Trust’s Nature Poems (2023). It is also set to music, illustrated and staged, and has featured multiple times on Radio 4’s Poetry Please and Radio 3’s The Verb. In 2021, Clare wrote the libretto for the community opera Daylighting, which premièred at the Royal Academy of Music and was shortlisted for an Ivor Novello Award for Community and Engagement. They have also written for theatre and radio, and as a mental health educator and trainer, they have published numerous resources in the field of mental health. Clare lives on the hills above Hebden Bridge and in 2022, co-wrote and presented Radio Four’s Weathering the Storm which explored the relationship between art, resilience and the landscape of the Calder Valley. A passionate advocate for accessibility in poetry, and for poetry as a tool of personal and social change, Clare has founded or directed numerous poetry initiatives including the Kendal Poetry Festival, Wonky Animals, the Lost Things Project and more. They have held poetry residences in numerous settings, including festivals, conferences, hospitals, factories, landfill sites and bogs; and they collaborate with artists and academics in other disciplines, including photography, folk music, film, conservation and design. Clare lectures at the University of Huddersfield and is a regular tutor for Wordsworth Grasmere, The Royal Literary Fund and The Arvon Foundation. Variously described as 'electrifying' and as 'one of the best readers on the scene', Clare performs across the UK and beyond.

There is a quiet, cool, authentic voice to the poems of Flood. A flood that destroyed Clare Shaw’s home town, mental illness, self-injury, the end of a relationship, are all experiences recounted with factual detachment… There is a sense that the poet’s most intimate surroundings have betrayed her, but the stillness and control with which Shaw writes reveal quiet layers of intensity drawn from unstable places.

• 9 What the Frog Taught Me About Love10 Letter to My Mother11 Elegy for My Grandma13 abcedarian14 The Night Your Mother Died15 This is a very small poem17 An Empirical Examination of the Stage Theory of Grief.18 Morecambe Bay as Grief20 Monkey Writes a Poem About His Mother21 Rhosymedre: Prelude on a Welsh Hymn22 The Day Thou Gavest23 Lesbian Conception in the Euston Hilton24 Midwife, Calderdale General Hospital26 Nocturne for My Daughter28 This Is About My Mother29 Child Protection Policy30 A Psychological Study of the Strange Situation31 Monkey and I Discuss the Difficulty of Working Therapeutically with Non-verbal Traumatic Memories33 My Bedroom34 An account of my reading from six to sixteen years old.35 I Ask Monkey How He Sleeps.36 The Impact of Neglect on the Developing Brain37 Why Did the Monkey Cross the Road?38 Monkey Talks About Self Injury39 Monkey Writes a Story About God40 Monkey Joins a Dating App41 Self Portrait as Monkey Getting Drunk42 When I look at her43 Monkey Teaches Me Map-reading Skills44 What the Goldfish Taught Me about Love45 Self-portrait as Hermaphroditus entering the water46 Night Swimming, Derwentwater48 Love as an Adder in Grizedale49 Love as DIY50 My Girlfriend Did Not Believe in Ghosts51 Love as a Poem52 The Titanic Reflects on the Recent Ending of a Long-term Relationship53 Self-portrait as Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore54 I come from Kergulen55 Love as a SatNav56 Love as a Global Pandemic57 What the Moon Taught Me About Love58 Total Social Isolation in Monkeys59 Love at the William Thompson Recreation Centre60 Lorry Driver61 The Garden of Earthly Delights62 Everything Is a Gift64 You couldn’t make it up65 Information for Survivors of Sexual Abuse and Rape67 Other than Personality Disorder, what term could you use to describe these people?68 Self-portrait as Hermaphroditus coming out of the water69 Monkey Invites Me to Imagine70 Chronicles of Narnia71 If Love is Snow72 Things I find attractive in a person73 Instructions for Care74 Day after a Migraine75 Monkey Reads William Blake79 Acknowledgements