Launching Darling Blue!

unboxing delight, poetry, film & an invitation

My big news is that Darling Blue is now officially out there — with big thanks to Dawn and Ronnie at Indigo Dreams for all their work on the typesetting and design, and getting it out to readers now! And to Luke Kennard and Pre-Raphaelite Society Poet-in-Residence Sarah Doyle for their wonderful endorsements!

JOINT WINNER of the Geoff Stevens Memorial Poetry Prize 2024, Darling Blue interweaves ekphrastic poems with a book-length fictional poetry narrative of love, lust and letting go. The poems inspired by Pre-Raphaelite artworks include QR codes, which readers can scan to view the pieces after or alongside their reading. Blue here is more than a colour or inspiration; it is desire, secrecy and sorrow – the essence of ‘feeling / really alive’, yet ‘distance’s illusion’.

“A fascinating creative hybrid weaving ekphrasis and cohesive narrative, Darling Blue deftly balances its fictional speaker’s personal response to various Pre-Raphaelite artworks, with rich descriptive hints that resonate way beyond the mere visual. Exploring the complex tensions between the public sphere and private activities, this collection is a gallery tour of the narrator’s unfulfilling relationship with an unattainable partner, through to the ultimate redemption of self-worth and new love. James’s finely crafted and intelligently controlled poems brim with vivid imagery and lush sensory detail, reminding the reader ‘how brightly sunlight shines through // when freed from a cracked mirror’.”
Sarah Doyle, Pre-Raphaelite Society Poet-in-Residence

“James uses the lyric and ekphrasis to create a profound and moving collection on the cost of love; what endures and how we survive its wake. As vivid and emotive as its pre-Raphaelite sources, Darling Blue is also startlingly direct, eloquent and consoling on the things we find hardest to put into words. An unmissable collection.”
Luke Kennard

The official publication date was 29 October and you can buy it from Indigo Dreams here, or as part of a book bundle from me here. This page also has more info and links to sample poems too. You can also email if you’d like a signed copy, or come and enjoy some live readings and a general poetry party feel at one of the launch events lined up. (See the end of this post for the 22 November launch in Droitwich and my general events page for other launches, readings and highlights already lined up and as new ones come in.)

A feature about Darling Blue (Indigo Dreams, 2025) with two sample poems, Bluebell Blue and Your Fingers, can be enjoyed in a Creative Writing Leicester feature here.

And the collection has also had its first reviews. Big thanks to Mab Jones for hers in Buzz and to Emma Lee for her detailed and considered review. Snippets from both can be found below, along with links to the full reviews.

“[…] Many of the poems are ekphrastic in nature, i.e. written in response to artworks. Interwoven with these is a personal poetry narrative telling a tale of love, desire, and parting. This is a compelling and original pairing; and James is deft in her threading of them, so that the twin stories shimmer, mirror, and loop together elegantly. […]
“Altogether, Darling Blue is tender and compassionate; daring and yet also finely rendered. […] this book, despite its longing and loss, enlivens and lifts up the reader, too. Remarkable.”
Mab Jones, Buzz, full review here

“Through “Darling Blue”, Sarah James has created two complementary threads. One is the doomed (fictional) affair of a woman with a married man that watches her move from the delusion of love to acceptance that she too was complicit in romanticising something tawdry. The wife is outside the frame: it’s not known if she knows of the affair or if the husband is a serial cheat. But there is a strong sense of self-discovery on the speaker’s part. The affair has enabled her to try out a role and learn what love is not. The ekphrastic poems add to the commentary: the speaker’s reaction to Crane’s “Neptune’s Horses” moves from awe at their power to identification where she takes back control after she realises that she was fooling herself. It’s a collection that rewards re-reading, a slow walk through a gallery, taking time to sit with each piece and choose to focus on the whole or a fragment, ask why a particular shade of blue was chosen or marvel at how the brushstrokes direct the light and the viewer’s eye, guiding it to see what the artist wants to reveal.”
Emma Lee, full review here

I’m chuffed to have had have two poetryfilms included in this year’s Wirral Poetry Festival Video Anthology. ‘Darling Blue’ and ‘The Day-Dreams’ are my poetryfilm versions of two poems from my collection Darling Blue (Indigo Dreams, 2025). They’re both inspired by Pre-Raphaelite art, including Millais’ ‘Little Speedwell’s Darling Blue’ from the Lady Lever Art Gallery in Port Sunlight. It’s wonderful to have them in the festival anthology, which was screened at the Lady Lever Art Gallery as part of this year’s festival and is now online on the festival website here.

DARLING BLUE LAUNCH

Saturday, 22 November 2025 — Darling Blue launch with Worcestershire Poetry Society Stanza Guest Poets

Date: Saturday, 22 November 2025
Times: 3-7pm whole event; reading: 3.30-5.30pm (Not a 2-hour reading, just the slot within which the readings will take place, drop in at any point the rest of the time!)
Venue: The Gallery (upstairs) at Droitwich Library (Victoria Square, Droitwich Spa, WR9 8DQ, UK
FREE but ticketed on Eventbrite
Please see full event details on Eventbrite for further details, including accessibility and intended age range

I would love it if you can join us for this!