REVIEW: GOLD LIGHT SHINING by BEBE ASHLEY
- Publisher : Banshee Press (22 Oct. 2020)
- Language: : English
- ISBN-10 : 0995655081
- ISBN-13
: 978-0995655089
BLURB
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 Technicolour joy disrupts our greyscale world.
MY REVIEW
The best chapbooks make you feel as though you know the author. So it is with Gold Light Shining by Bebe Ashley. Taking the songs and celebrity of Harry Styles as a central pillar of the book, the poet gives us snapshots of pop culture, youth, relationships and their difficulties to create a chapbook rich in visual imagery - some of it tragic. So dense is the experience of reading the poems that I had to restrict myself to a section at a time. This proved the better approach on second reading, as the work revealed deeper meanings to me.
I was fascinated to read all the notes and acknowledgements at the back of the book. The process interested me as much as the finished piece. Many of the poems crystallise the poet's own experiences like rare insects trapped in amber. The poet is especially gifted with capturing the moments of awkwardness we experience as we try to connect with others yet can never admit. My particular favourite was the prose poem Exhibitionist in the section Fan Girl.
The poems in this collection bear
reading at least twice to get the full enjoyment out of them. It feels
modern and fresh with its anti-elitist revelling in the internet, pop culture and Harry
Styles. Interestingly, I think it contributes to his mystique as a modern
icon. I'm looking forward to reading more from Bebe Ashley.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bebe Ashley lives in Belfast. She is an AHRC funded PhD candidate at the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry. Her work can be found in Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal, Poetry Ireland Review, Banshee, Modern Poetry in Translation, Poetry Jukebox and The Tangerine. When procrastinating from her PhD, she takes British Sign Language and Braille classes and writes pop culture articles for United by Pop, specialising in Harry Styles.
Buy it here.
Comments