Mary Coghill's Designed to Fade was published by Shearsman Books in 2006. This is a woman's narrative poem about the city. It uses a dramatic unity of the duration of a day, recounting events both real and mythical.

Mary Coghill was born in London and has lived and worked in London for many years. Early work was published in One Foot On The Mountain (1979, Onlywomen Press). Recently published poetry explores the central themes of what city poetry is and what a city poetic means. This theme has also been explored as part of a completed PhD at The London Metropolitan University. A second book-length city poem Shades of Light: A Triumph of City , was published in 2013 and is now available from City of Poetry. A third volume, Assay of Blood and Gold: London Poems followed in 2017 from the same publisher.