Shadow Price
House of Anansi | April 1st, 2025
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.
Excerpts & Recognition
- Excerpt of Shadow Price | Winner of the E.J. Pratt Medal and Prize in Poetry, Awarded by George Elliott Clarke & Committee from the University of Toronto
- The Pear; Larvae; New Year, New Me | Longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize | Read Excerpt Here
- Self Portrait with Polar Bears | Winner of the Hart House Literary Contest | Read Here
- End of the World Poem | Finalist for Far Horizons Award for Poetry, The Malahat Review
- Here, Grass | Honourable Mention for Arts and Letters Club of Toronto Foundation Poetry Award | Read Here
- Departure for Noah's Ark | Augur | Read Here
- Equality | The Walrus | Read Here
- Birthday Poem | Canthius | Read Here
- The Jungle Book: Epilogue | The Seventh Wave | Read Here
- Oryx | AHVAZ // AAVAZ // AVAAZ: A Chapbook Anthology of South Asian Poetry, League of Canadian Poets Read Here
