Shadow Price: Poems

by Farah Ghafoor

Shortlisted, 2025 Governor General's Literary Award for Poetry
Shortlisted, 2026 Trillium Book Award for Poetry
Longlisted, 2025 Toronto Book Awards
Shortlisted, 2026 League of Canadian Poets' Raymond Souster Award
A CBC Best Book of 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.

Genres: Poetry

126 pages, Paperback

Published April 1, 2025

Reviews

[Jillian B · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, this collection of poems is poignant and powerful. The author uses poetic, sometimes absurdist, imagery to drive home her points about the devastation of unchecked capitalism and climate change, and this technique is very effective.

If you’re looking to get into reading poetry, and you are a person who cares about the world and the impact we have on it, this collection is a great place to start.

[Sarah Hilton · Rating 5 out of 5]

“If you burn a book, you burn yourself endlessly, cauterize time itself.”

No one’s doing it like Farah 😭😭😭😭😭

[alexa · Rating 4 out of 5]

“You can still see it, over there, over the burning hill of industry, where we expect the clashes of rain, of flame, of stone.”

Farah offers a keen, grounded voice that jarred me right into confronting the implications and shifting dooms of climate change and colonialism. Her ability to take economic based concepts and explain it with clarity, while balancing the language with poetic flow is a wonderment.

What struck me most was the way in which the imagery of nature, often associated with beauty,
is bloodied in an absurd, wildly effective manner.

It is not the easiest text to enter, but the work and close reading required (as for most poetry) is well worth it.

[Liadra · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Under the weight of the sun's glare, I discover that we will arrive at 1.5 degrees by 2027."

That line stuck out for me.

The whole book revolved around climate change. At times the poetry was brutal. But necessary. I can not say I loved the book, but I was given a lot to think on. Still worth your while.

[Jesse June-Jack · Rating 5 out of 5]

An exceptional collection of poems that navigate climate consciousness through time and space, providing thought provoking words through a clinical, playful, and deeply human voice that cannot be ignored.

[eileen · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely stunning poetry collection that faces the climate crisis head on.

[Hafsa | حفصہ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Day 1 of the #SealeyChallenge 2025

[Debs]

3.5 stars

[Elaine]

Favourites -
Devotion
The Pear
The Endangered Monarch Butterfly Lives for Seven Months or Six Weeks

[Hasan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent