Borrowing its title from a finance term—“the estimated price of a good or service for which no market price exists”—Shadow Price is a stunning debut that examines the idea of value in a world that burns under our capitalist lens.
What gives life value? How do we serve existing societal structures that determine its cost? Employing both surreal and documentary imagery, Farah Ghafoor's arresting collection articulates how narrative is used to revise the past and manipulate the future, ultimately forming our present-day climate crisis. Interrogating personal complicity, generational implications, and the shock of our collective disregard for a world that sustains every living thing, Shadow Price captures the complexities of living and writing as a young poet born in the year that “climate change denial” first appeared in print. Mourning the loss of Earth’s biodiversity, from insects to mammoths to trees, these introspective poems invite us to consider the risks and rewards of loving what may vanish in our lifetime.
Shadow Price charges readers to contemplate their power and purpose in the world today, recognizing that there is hope even in the belly of the beast.
Borrowing its title from a finance term—“the estimated price of a good or service for which no market price exists”—Shadow Price is a stunning debut that examines the idea of value in a world that burns under our capitalist lens.
What gives life value? How do we serve existing societal structures that determine its cost? Employing both surreal and documentary imagery, Farah Ghafoor's arresting collection articulates how narrative is used to revise the past and manipulate the future, ultimately forming our present-day climate crisis. Interrogating personal complicity, generational implications, and the shock of our collective disregard for a world that sustains every living thing, Shadow Price captures the complexities of living and writing as a young poet born in the year that “climate change denial” first appeared in print. Mourning the loss of Earth’s biodiversity, from insects to mammoths to trees, these introspective poems invite us to consider the risks and rewards of loving what may vanish in our lifetime.
Shadow Price charges readers to contemplate their power and purpose in the world today, recognizing that there is hope even in the belly of the beast.
| Published By | House of Anansi Press Inc — Apr 1, 2025 |
| Specifications | 128 pages | 5.75 in x 8 in |
| Keywords | Poetry; EJ Pratt Award for Poetry; CBC Poetry Prize; University of Toronto; Financial Analyst; Accounting Poems; South Asian; My Grief the Sun; Intruder; Sanna Wani; Wellwater; Room Magazine; Silk Road Literary Festival; League of Canadian Poets; ARC Poetry Magazine; Pakistani-Canadian; Climate Anxiety; Capitalism; Late Stage Capitalism; |
| Written By |
FARAH GHAFOOR is an award-winning poet living on the traditional territory of the Anishnabeg, the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat peoples. Her work was awarded the E.J. Pratt Medal and Prize in Poetry, longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize, is taught in university courses, and published in The Walrus, the Fiddlehead, Room, and elsewhere. Raised in New Brunswick and southern Ontario, Ghafoor now works in Tkaronto (Toronto) as a financial analyst. |
| Written By |
|
FARAH GHAFOOR is an award-winning poet living on the traditional territory of the Anishnabeg, the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat peoples. Her work was awarded the E.J. Pratt Medal and Prize in Poetry, longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize, is taught in university courses, and published in The Walrus, the Fiddlehead, Room, and elsewhere. Raised in New Brunswick and southern Ontario, Ghafoor now works in Tkaronto (Toronto) as a financial analyst. |
“Farah Ghafoor’s highly-anticipated debut is as expansive and epic as it is exacting … Shadow Price is a stalwart reminder of how much we have already lost to capitalism, how much we still might lose, and how we might come to terms with this disrepair.”– Sanna Wani, author of My Grief, the Sun
”“With ardor and a lustrous fury, Farah Ghafoor emboldens with poems that resound of a planet in crisis … This is a book we need now more than ever given the severe and precarious state of our entire existence and all that we touch, eat, breathe, and leave behind." —Mai Der Vang, author of Primordial
”"If we are the last poets, may this collection inspire us to truly value the pricelessness of our wounded and wondrous planet." — Craig Santos Perez, author of Cal This Mutiny
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