Somebody Loves Us All
Ella Frears
New poetry inspired by motorway service stations
Whilst the road trip has long been the preserve of the Hollywood film, service stations and gas stations have been the focus of incredible poems by Elizabeth Bishop, Derek Mahon, C K Williams and more.
Inspired by these poets, Ella Frears created a sequence of poems in response to motorway service stations between Cornwall (where she grew up) and London (where she lives now).
Project credits
Poet: Ella Frears
Artist: Naomi Frears
Producer: Tom MacAndrew
Videographer & Stills Photogrpahy: Alban Roinard
Event Photography: Cat Goryn
A pregnancy test at Hayle Services, a breakdown, a hotel room, Stonehenge, sandwiches and unforgiving lighting - Ella’s poems interrogate the female within these historically masculine spaces and explore the Service Station both as a specific location and as a symbolic midpoint.
The poems were premiered alongside photographs by Alban Roinard, and a new art-film by visual artist Naomi Frears at Bold Tendencies Gallery, Peckham.
You can read many of the poems in Ella’s debut collection: Shine, Darling, published by Offord Road Books and which was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, and shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, the T.S. Eliot Prize.
