Strip
(Salt publishing 2007)

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Strip is my most recent book, and the one book I had published by a national publisher, Salt Publishing. The poems follow the life of characters, progressing from childhood, to a teenager running away from home, then finding work in the porn industry. It isn't a book of pornographic poems. I wanted to find the people beneath their circumstances, to find hopes, dreams, tenderness where we may not expect it. I spent a lot of time on ordering the poems, because I was hoping the book would be more than the sum of its parts.

I learnt a lot from the process of Strip I think. Somehow I'm a better writer because of what I learnt writing it. If anyone is interested in my work and wanted to try it Strip is the one I'd recommend.

Titles I considered for the book

Show
The Porcelain Dollhouse
Sweethearts
Life of a Porn Star
Trash (suggested)
The Gentleman’s Lounge
Little Darling’s
Postcards from a Porn Set
Showing Pink

Gutted: That Courtney Love called her book Dirty Blonde - since it would have suited this to a T!

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Blurbs for Strip

‘These are teasing 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 fairytale 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.’

S J Litherland

‘Angela Readman's stunning poems negotiate devastating territory with
clarity and originality. Her narrator catches me by the hand and
heart: she tugs at my sleeve and whispers in my ear in this never less than utterly compelling collection. I want to follow her as she blasts a singular, sideways path through a world of crass stepfathers and centrefolds. You will
too.’

Anna Woodford

Extracts from Strip:

‘Mom swirls in a new dress, smooth as cream
being poured on peaches from a can.
He holds out his arm, and she brings out that smile
I saw once, covered in everything, at the bottom of her purse.
…
With my finger I write on the dust in the table
‘I am angry, but I don’t know why.’ (California Parking)

‘With my eyes half shut, I have learnt
to be my own Van Gogh…’ (One Thing)

‘Teach me to listen, find the gasp in your hello,
How you make it sound like the first line to a tall tale.’
(How not to make love like a porn star)

‘ she makes a sound like the skin of a girl,
being unzipped to let a wolf in.’ (Bodil and the Pigs)

My own favourite Poem in Strip: Bodil and the Pigs, The postcards poems, Postcard from Route 66, Postcards to a Future Husband, etc.

My least favourite poem in Strip: What the agent said

I considered not including this poem because I hate the character so much. I thought on it for a long time; concluding that of course there is no reason to write only characters you personally like, and the contrast in viewpoints presented by this poem is part of the subject’s baggage. Hence I included it, but I don’t have to like that it had to go in.

Reviews -

Pank Magazine

Stride

Poem from Strip featured in Frieda Hughes column in The Times

Poem from Strip in The Forward Anthology

Poems from Strip published in:

Staple
Dreamcatcher
Bodil and the Pigs- 2nd place in Ragged Raven Long Poetry Competition
Laura Hird's site