Clare Shaw was born in 1972 in Burnley, the youngest of six children, and moved to Liverpool at the age of 18 to study politics. Her years in the city were marked by frequent admissions to psychiatric wards, which motivated her to become involved in working to improve mental health services. In her work, postgraduate study, publications and activism, she has become a recognised voice on women's mental health issues. She lives in West Yorkshire, and works in a self-harm awareness training partnership with her sister. Described by Carol Ann Duffy as 'one of the best new young readers on the circuit', Clare is a popular and engaging reader of her own work. She has two collections from Bloodaxe, Straight Ahead (2006), which was shortlisted for the Glen Dimplex New Writers' Award for Poetry, and attracted a Forward Prize Highly Commended for Best Single Poem, and Head On (2012).

Books by Clare Shaw:

Clare Shaw's Website.

About Head On:

"The energy and vivacity of Clare Shaw’s writing, its colloquial power, frame of reference and sheer sound is enough to mark her out as one of the most talented young poets to appear in recent years. Hers is a natural gift that speaks as it sings. It confronts the world with knowledge, pity, melancholy, affection and a kind of sympathetic fury, as if the world were shards and fragments that could be gathered into the ear and sung from the heart. And the remarkable thing is that she does gather it and sing it, that she imbues it with the passion owing to it"
—George Szirtes

"Hold your breath when you read Clare Shaw’s poems. Startling, searing, scorching, this is an emotional blast of a book"
—Jackie Kay