Shale is the first collection of poems by the winner of The Sunday Tribune 'New Irish Writer of the Year' Award and the Hennessey Cognac Award for Poetry whose judges recognised her 'tremendous maturity, sophistication and wit'.

The book's longer poems and meditations offer revisions of received themes such as History and Myth, but Vona Groarke is fluent too in shorter modes. The collection includes a number of songs and terse fictions, all of which
are illuminated by a haunting and sensual lyricism.