Hello and welcome to a brand new series of Frank Skinner's poetry podcast.

Let me let you into a technique of mine. Whenever I get a collection of poems by a single

poet who I don't know, I will read through it, scribbling stuff on the poems, but I will

go back to the title page and I write sort of my general thoughts, my big sweeping ideas

about this poet. I'm making them sound grand, but they're not things I normally share

verbatim, although they might get sort of mingled into these podcasts a bit. However, today

I thought I'd just read what I've written just straight from the page, just this little

bit at the front of a book I was given called Shine Darling by a poet called Ella Freer,

who I was unfamiliar with. And this is what I wrote as far as my general notes is concerned

on the front page of the book. Spiky sweary funny tragic on settling and yet joy inducing

was the first thing I wrote. And then she has an extra mile sensibility, rushing past the

obviously poetic and looking on the higher shelves. Really, I mean, I don't know if you

have a phrase I had on that day. Not afraid to celebrate art, but does it in a rug pulling

away? There are some poems about fine art and stuff in the collection. Now, here's a question,

can prose be poetry? Question mark. Yes, is my conclusion. And finally, the book is not just

gathered separate. It has a distinctive and compelling voice. It's clever, kind and detached.

Now, if I was writing this for publication, I don't think I'd end clever, kind and detached.

It makes it sound like a failing, detached element. I don't think it is at all. I was sort of

blown away by Shine Darling by Ella Freer. So I thought I'd share a couple of the poems with you.

I've only just discovered this poem and this book myself. And so it's still fresh paint as far

as I'm concerned. But let's just go for it. I want to start off with a poem called Midpoint,

which was one of the ones that blew me even further away than many of the other poems in the book.

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