The poems in My Darling from the Lions form a beautiful and expansive archive of growing up in London as a young mixed heritage woman. A narrative collection in three parts, it threads experiences of the learning and unlearning of shame, the body, sex, faith, Blackness, lineage, prophecy and healing. Rachel Long’s strong, soulful, wise and weary voice sings through the collection, with striking confidence for a debut collection. These are poems for now, and poems you will be desperate to press into the hands of others.

Rachel Long is an essential and dazzling new voice.