Strip

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

Strip reveals the lives of 50's pin-up Bettie page, and hardcore porn stars of the following eras with stunning beauty and poignancy. These poems illuminate the darkest of places as they explore taboo with acute sensitivity from suburbia to cinema screen. These poems are cinematic, visual, hauntingly, beautiful and at times devastating.

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.