Angela Readman

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Biographical note:  Angela Readman has worked as a cleaner, a painter, a copywriter for radio, an editor, and lectured at The University of Northubria. She won the Biscuit poetry competition in 2004, and has been published by Diamond Twig, Iron Press, Biscuit. Her work has been translated into Finnish by Ek Zuban. She currently lives in Newcastle.

BIC Basic

EAN13:  9781844713035
ISBN:  9781844713035
Author:  Angela Readman
Title:  Strip
Series:  Salt Modern Poets
Product class:  BB
Language:  eng
Audience:  General/trade
BIC subject category:  CTCH1
Publisher:  Salt Publishing
Pub date:  01-Nov-07
Extent:  80pp
Height:  216 mm
Width:  140 mm
Thickness:  11 mm
Weight:  120 gms
Supplier:   Gardners Books
Supplier:   Ingram Book Group
Supplier:   Inbooks (James Bennett)
Availability:  NP
Price:  GBP 12.99
Price:  USD 23.95
Rights:  World

Main description:  Sugar and Spice and All things nice?
Is that what little girls are made of?
Magazines, lippy and a push-up bra?

Porn star, sex symbol, victim or whore? What does it mean to be a woman in the 21st century? Are we born girls? Or are we the products of what has gone before?

Strip reveals the lives of 50's pin-up Bettie Page, hardcore porn stars and the little girl left behind on the way with stunning beauty and poignancy. The poet is not afraid to go beyond the boundaries of taste, and ask what lies beneath images we both admire and demonise. The strong voice of these sensitive and powerful narratives manages to find a sad beauty within lives. These cinematic poems are political in the most subtle sense as they explore the intimacy of power relations, gender, and unpick notions of glamour to find the tale behind the glossy centrefold. The work is a tapestry of how femininity is created, culturally and individually, exposing how the girl on stage stitches together her personae, and then strips her down layer by layer.

Poems that refuse to shy away from the dark, the grotesque and the taboo, but lead us, through an interplay of beautifully crafted, sensuous language, striking visuals, voice and often devastating observation to bring us face to face with the ‘other’ in ourselves. The true shock in these haunting narratives is that these lives speak to all of us about family, sex, power and love.

Table of contents:
Poppies
Bodil and the Pigs
LIFE OF A PORN STAR
Tom and Jerry Transaction
Clear Blue Sky
Postcard from Route 66
Dinner With No Name
Laundry Day
There Will Be No Time For Kisses
Blossom
Postcard from Hotel California
Tomatoes
One Thing
Stuff Dad Left Behind
California Parking
Right Before the License Plate Game
Page from a Teenage Diary
Head for the Hills
The Free Ride
Brace
Burlesque
Strip
Postcard to the Photographer
How a Girl Could Do That
Postcard to a Future Husband
How to Make Love Not Like a Porn Star
Postcard from a Porn Set
What the Agent Said
THE PORN STAR LETTERS
THE BETTIE PAGES
Momma and the Angels
Sweetheart
Housewife
Irving Klaw
Cheesecake Snaps
Co-habiting
Darling Miss February
The Glass Bottomed Boat
Heavy Petting Doris Day
The Bettie Pages
Six Things You Can Do With a Skin Mag

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Excerpt from book:  

What the Agent Said

How were we supposed to know?
She walked in here like butter wouldn’t melt
on those double D’s, all handbag and a decent ID.
Exploitation? It was her who exploited me;
never saw a fifteen year old with more balls.
A real Lolita, you know the type,
dollar signs in her eyes, anything to be a star.
Now there’s guys who fucked her in all innocence
I feel sorry for, treated like perverts,
never work again. No one asks how they feel.
Yeah, I’ve read the book, well, half.
So you made movies and national news?
Boo-fucking-hoo. She loved it, the attention,
the sex too. In between takes she’d swim naked,
get it on with Sunrise in front of the crew.
Course I know why she lied, she had to.
Shit like that won’t get you on Oprah man.
Only in America dude, in Japan
a girl that age could be married by now.

Unpublished endorsement :  These are teasing erotic poems with imagery brilliant as sequins on a gown, that persuade us of the wayward frisson of pin-up glamour and bravado of bleached hair. In Strip we undergo our own journey of vicarious pleasure, down to the bone of ourselves. Didn’t we always know those suggestive fairy stories could groom us for the porn movie? This is a coming of age collection of a poet truly blossoming: elegant, witty, provocative and subversive on ‘this short forever’ of sex and its appeal.

S.J. Litherland

Annie Clarkson
Stride Magazine

Previous review quote:  Genuine work from a genuine new voice – a voice which will be heard.

Joolz

Previous review quote:  Poetry is something of a no no for me usually as often it’s so damn obscure you have to be the actual poet to understand what the flipping thing is on about; not this book. Impressive, refreshing, honest and hilarious are just a few ways of describing Sex with Elvis … This is a truly brilliant observant authentic painting with words. An unforgettable word mistress. More please.

The Crack

Previous review quote:  Angela Readman’s work is a carefully stitched embroidery of the familiar and the often overlooked or taken for granted- she makes pictures that stay in your mind long after the poem has been read. Sharply observant, dry, savage and wholly authentic. Genuine work from a genuine new voice, a voice that will be heard.

Joolz

Previous review quote:  Readman casts her eye over ordinary life with a sharp knife. This is witty, astute poetry of the inventive kind. Sex with Elvis feels important, as all good poetry should … Poetry with an edge. Read it, taste it, it’s bloody wonderful!

Julia Darling