Clare Pollard Books in Order

Written during Pollard's teenage years in Bolton, these poems explore youth, appearance, disappointment and desire. Their speakers confront the compromises of growing up through sharp observations, skepticism and moments of hope.

These poems move through the intimacy, fantasy and cruelty associated with bedtime. Personal encounters open into questions about masculinity, racial politics, belief and the blurred boundaries between private confession and public entertainment.

Teenager Ellie predicts catastrophe while her mother shops and drinks and her father avoids their problems. As the weather becomes increasingly erratic, a poltergeist in the kitchen brings the family’s tensions into disturbing focus.

A year of journeys and homecomings connects global unease with private change. Poems about travel, war and Western guilt turn toward engagement, illness and bereavement as the speaker considers her closest relationships.

Folktales, ballads and monsters shape poems about the fear of outsiders and the difficulty of trust. Moving between historical persecution and contemporary life, the collection examines belonging, power and freedom.

Pregnancy, childbirth and parenthood open into questions about responsibility and the world children inherit. Folklore, biblical stories and accounts of lost children connect intimate experiences with wider political fears.

Pollard explores the stories behind children's picture books, including their creators' lives and unexpectedly dark themes. Memories of childhood reading meet the experience of returning to these books as a parent.

A scholar researching ancient prophecy struggles through pandemic lockdown with a strained marriage and a withdrawing son. Her fascination with predicting the future begins to eclipse the urgent needs of her present life.

In Louis XIV's Paris, Marie d'Aulnoy gathers writers to exchange fairy tales in her salon. Their inventive stories conceal private desires and dangerous secrets as court suspicion and the threat of a spy close in.

Dog keeper Ro and kitchen servant Elva set out to find the Holy Grail and heal Ro's mother. Their quest brings them into conflict with Arthur's cruel knights and the forces poisoning their land.

Pollard brings the lives and work of women poets into conversation with contemporary experience. Historical voices and everyday routines reveal how exclusion, literary inheritance and artistic survival shape the stories a culture remembers.