Lady E-Book

Laurie Bolger

• Herausgeber: Nine Arches Press
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 40

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

Lady, the first full collection of poems by Laurie Bolger, arrives 'all giddy with endorphins' and explores the many roles girls and women are asked to play and the dressing-up outfits they try on for size – whether housewife or hen, sister or mum, landlady, exercise instructor or best friend forever. Bolger's poems turn her bold, funny and wise words on boys, body image and the pressure to make yourself fit into a pigeon-hole, when all you really want to do is soar away on your own wings. Here, these gritty and effervescent poems look to the things that sustain us when navigating an imperfect world obsessed with perfection. Whether dancing in the kitchen, crying in the bath or eating crisps, these poems are equal parts delicious, joyous, and bittersweet. A celebration of the resilience of working-class women and the solidarity and love found in friendship and family, Bolger's poems dare to dream and be wild – and invite us all to join her.

Leseprobe

Lady

Lady

Laurie Bolger

ISBN: 978-1-916760-14-1

eISBN: 978-1-916760-15-8

Copyright © Laurie Bolger, 2025.

Cover artwork: ‘Sent Off’, 2019 (photo) © Juno Calypso.

All rights reserved 2025 / Bridgeman Images.

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, recorded or mechanical, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Laurie Bolger has asserted her right under Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

First published April 2025 by:

Nine Arches Press

Studio 221, Zellig

Gibb Street, Deritend

Birmingham

B9 4AT

United Kingdom

www.ninearchespress.com

Printed in the United Kingdom on recycled paper by Imprint Digital.

Nine Arches Press is supported using public funding by Arts Council England.

for Mum

Contents

Spin Bike 53

Washing

Endurance

Her Indoors

Royal

George

Tomboy

Things I Remember

Mini Break

Chef

Bants

Fried Eggs

Period

Your girlfriend sets fire to the gym

MASH

Mermaid

Stars

Boxercise

How much rain can a cloud hold?

Nightdrive

Gem

Weights

Roots

Pigeon

Parkland Walk

like when the bird got stuck in the window of the sweet shop on Oxford Street

Valentines

Gold

Birds

Cookie Come Home

Diet Pills

Scampi

Courage

Pens

Call Me Lady

After Class

The landlady won’t let me paint the wardrobe pink

Girl, Hotel Mirror

Acknowledgements

About the author and this book

In the hotel

she eats a breakfast of fruit

arranged like a puzzle

underneath a silver dome.

She picks at it, a model in a bathrobe

hugging one bronzed knee.

Spin Bike 53

I thought all my legs were good for was chasing boys

letting them catch me in small small towns where the women

take their joy out with the bins        and beauty        was ripping

little hairs from upper lips           keeping your nails immaculate

staying trim in shoes you can’t run in      and even now

we are   calorie counters               clinging to 50% of our wrists

the wrists of the girls I went to school with

who never meant to make it about weight                          but always did –

I don’t blame them         because            listen           we are

               flinging our breaths out into the dark      from the podium

                              she calls us an army         and pushing the beat

we don’t want to pose under a flower arch now       we want to glow

in the queue for pizza         fierce             listen                       rock back

did you get out        did you come back         did you make it      did you find love here?

Washing

I’m listening to the spin cycle –

its determination to make it to the end

on our street you could see the rise and fall

of fresh washing rinsed and hung against brick

those women who could make anything new again

in the sun they’d scrub and scrub             up to their elbows in it

when I was little I’d spin the line on its axis

whilst mum tried to peg heavy towels to it

I was making the laundry my wedding dress

watching the heavy drip of men leave the pub

watching women who would look after them until the end

sewing names into trousers so when they were gone

someone would still know they were his.

Endurance

                          I take a blunt razor                      from the scaly corner shelf

       balance it against my leg    the windowsill is gummy with shower gel

                                            the lady scent of Ylang Ylang and Geranium –

I think of the sunset woman in the rainforest

               pull back the blade still

                              and when the blood trickles       I stand blankly

then paste toilet roll over my shin so I don’t ruin the good towels.

and it gets stuck              in islands              won’t stop         the blood

and I’ve got school

               so squatting on the cream shag rug             I can’t say I’ve started yet

               everything gets mixed up together

the aisles are full with adventures: Sea-moss and Black Pepper for men

                              and I’m trying to be       Soft Lotus Flower.

Her Indoors

Sometimes I move that silver ring from one finger

to the next, to see what it might look like

to love someone to their bones –

to keep dinner in the oven and keep it warm for years,

put garden fences on my Christmas list

and keep that list tucked under takeaway menus –

to be kissed and ask

what you want in your sandwich –

and let’s say it’s you that kissed me

you who goes off first thing

to sell pensions from a briefcase –

while I make waving from square windows an art.

I’ll keep her past in the drawers,

write letters to the back of the oven,

sew my wishes into the sides of your vests.

I’ll dance in the kitchen,

I’ll cry in the bath, and always get us

a lottery ticket when I go out for the milk.