Writer, poet, film producer, Sam Edwards, is the daughter of a 1960s wild child and a one-time rock star who turned his back on fame to head up a religious cult deep in the English countryside. After working in the television industry for many years, in 2008 she founded the film production company, Ragged Crow, with director Ed Edwards.

Their short films, Solstice (2008), Dogboy (2009), Bad Obsession (2009), and Insomnia (2010) have all been very well received and the latter three have all been screened as official selections at a number of influential film festivals, including London’s Portobello Film Festival. Where, their debut feature film, Stealing Elvis (2010), received its première. Written and produced by Sam Edwards, and filmed on location in north London, the film is a thoroughly enjoyable heist story which went on to screen at the London Independent Film Festival in April of 2011.  Their latest short, Wardance (2011), was nominated for The Newcomer Award at the Rushes Soho Shorts Festival 2011 in July, and was screened at London’s ICA.

Sodium, a collection of Rock ‘n’ Roll poetry about madness and bad behaviour, is Edwards’ first volume of poems, and she has also recently completed her first novel, Narcosis.

CUTE AND SWEET AND EASILY BROKEN

You’re so emotionally tight,

But I’ll let you prise me open.

Face sparkles with naïveté’s light,

You’re cute and sweet and easily broken.

You’ll assist me in my twisted plight,

Sick with lust at the words I’ve spoken.

We’ll indulge in a sex fun fight,

You’re cute and sweet and easily broken.

Your soft inflections are so contrite,

But lucked out slickness is my only token.

Can I barter for your soul tonight?

You’re cute and sweet and easily broken.

Let me set your body alight,

You’re the grate that I burn my hope on.

I can squeeze your goodness tight.

You’re cute and sweet and easily broken

Don’t scream that it wasn’t right -

The sacrifice at my crimson totem.

You felt my hook and you took a bite,

You’re cute and sweet and easily broken.

O darling you’re a pitiful sight,

Now your anger has awoken.

It’s love that I can’t requite.

You’re cute and sweet and easily broken.

MAD CRAZY WOMEN AND THEIR PRETTY BOY LOVERS

Eyes staring wired and lipstick bright,

They stagger out in the brazen night.

They drink and swear, they wear black leathers,

Mad crazy women and their pretty boy lovers.

They’re a bunch of hell-bent bitches.

They fill you up with insatiable itches,

As you fall on your knees to cry and splutter,

Mad crazy women and their pretty boy lovers.

Wound up tight in search of easy game,

Coke buzzed head and their tongues aflame,

They prowl about, they shriek and they hover,

Mad crazy women and their pretty boy lovers.

Their throats are slick with dirt-cheap liquor.

They’ll take you on with a steel-clad liver.

Lock up your husbands and warn your brothers.

Mad crazy women and their pretty boy lovers.

The glasses fly and the knives come out.

Flesh is torn, men scream and shout,

Broken hearts bleeding, bodies bound and tethered.

Mad crazy women and their pretty boy lovers.

BEHIND HER EYES

Once I was lean,

I would strut and I would prowl,

I would stamp my spiked boots,

Throw my head back and howl.

In the feral night,

I would prey on the weak

I’d drag them to my lair,

Smash their big clay feet.

I was wild, I was crazy,

I was free, I was mean.

I was blood-spitting drunk,

I was a prowler of the street.

I would laugh, I would rant,

I would scream and I would wail.

I’d roll my yellow eyes

And lash my fearsome tail.

Then a shaman came my way,

He spoke to me and saved me.

He fed me tender morsels,

Clipped my claws and renamed me.

They think me very tame now.

I know the things they said;

That he stoppered up my mouth,

And poured concrete in my head.

But I bide my pretty time,

Keep my secrets pitch and black.

I store up my weapons

Bare my teeth and arch my back.

So should you chance to stroll

Past these high stone walls,

And feel an ice-cold fear

Grip your heart, and squeeze your balls,

Know I sit here, vengeful.

I watch for you and wait,

I will pounce and tear and drag you

Back behind my high, spiked gate.

SUICIDE SEDUCTION

The lure of Death is here.

It’s awful red and gibbous,

Full to bursting.

Waxy, velvetine and taut.

I sit motionless.

Before I plunge to my knees,

Mutter ineffectual pleas,

And sink as low as I can get.

The devils are here again.

The obsessions.

The small knives of self-punishment

Which needle my flesh, my hope, my sanity.

Death importunes sadly,

And caresses with razor-blades.

There is nowhere to turn.

I am trapped in cold iron,

Rusted shut,

My eyes shriek words.

But no-one hears.

All poems in this extract from Sodium by Sam Edwards © Sam Edwards 2011

Sodium by Sam Edwards is available both as a paperback book and as a free file download from Lulu.com

For details on ordering the paperback, which costs £2.06, click  here.

For details of the free file download, click here.

Read more about Stealing Elvis in the issue 9 of the print edition of Plectrum - The Cultural Pick, click for more details.

Links:

Make friends with Sodium Rock and Roll Poetry on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002352976997&ref=ts

Ragged Crow: www.raggedcrow.com

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Hotel Pelirocco, 10 Regency Square, Brighton, East Sussex. BN1 2FG. UK
Ten monthly events from July 2011 to April 2012

After the success of their first season of live literature and music events, enthusiastically endorsed by the writers and musicians who took part, including Cathi Unsworth, Amanda Smyth, Scott Bradfield, and Naomi Foyle, and audience members alike - with the venue at Brighton’s Hotel Pelirocco often standing room only, Ace Stories, created and directed by Jay Clifton, returns for a second season which promises to be even better than the first.

In partnership with The Writing School at Kingston University, London, and supported by Arts Council England, the ten events in Ace Stories: Season 2, all take place on Sunday nights, from 6pm - 8pm, at Hotel Pelirocco, Brighton. Each event features an headlining writer, with support readings from two writers local to Brighton, and live music, in addition to prize giveaways to ticket-buyers (via a raffle system) of books, CDs, and DVD, from Ace Records, Serpent’s Tail, and Momentum Pictures.

The first three events in the programme are:

Sunday 17 July 2011:
Jayne Joso (author of Perfect Architect and Soothing Music for Stray Cats)

With support readings from Mike Loveday and Lizzie Enfield, and music from Brighton duo, Fire Eyes.

Sunday 14 August 2011:
Cathi Unsworth (author of Bad Penny Blues and The Singer)

With support readings from Danny Bowman and Stefania Mastorosa, and music from Sandy Dillon (whose band includes guitarist Ray Majors, ex-Mott the Hoople, Yardbirds)

Sunday 25 September 2011:
Virginia Woolf: A Commemoration with Professor Rachel Bowlby (author of Virginia Woolf: Feminist Destinations) and Dr Theodore R. Koulouris (Author of Hellenism and Loss in the Work of Virginia Woolf).

With support readings from Erinna Mettler and Hannah Tuson.

All events start at 6pm (audience members are advised to buzz to be let), admission (includes entry into raffle for prize giveaways) is £3, and take place at
Hotel Pelirocco, 10 Regency Square, Brighton, East Sussex. BN1 2FG. UK.

Links:

Ace Stories: acestories.ebn3.com
or:
www.facebook.com/acestories

Kingston Writing School: fass.kingston.ac.uk/writing

Hotel Pelirocco: www.hotelpelirocco.co.uk

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Krzysztof Ciemnołoński, Roman Honet, Joanna Małgorzata Przybylska
Translated from the Polish by Marek Kazmierski

Marek Kazmierski is the director and founder of OFF_ , a UK-based independent press, promoting contemporary creative writing in English and Polish translations, using multimedia and live events to celebrate reading and storytelling in different languages/genres around the world.

The aims of OFF_ are fivefold;

• encourage the reading of literature in translation

• bring writers together around an independent press

• create a bridge between English and Polish literary worlds

• publish books and anthologies under the OFF_Press banner

• use multimedia tools and networks to promote literature worldwide

Krzysztof Ciemnołoński

Krzysztof Ciemnołoński, born 1985 in Warsaw, Poland, is a  DJ, events organiser, music critic, and loves post-punk and psychobilly. He has  published the poetry volumes, płaskostopie (SDK 2003) and przebicia (SDK 2005). A new volume, eskalacje, is currently being readied for publication.  He lives in Zalesie Górne with his wife and son.

ruptures (medley)

and another line deprives access to the sea
we stand on the pier paralysed like all
those stories about a group of friends honouring

the final wish of one dead rolling through countries and bars
cross crossroads with the promise of ashes scattered along the coast
but once there can’t do anything other than turn circles

wandering is an aim in itself (when setting off on a
journey choose the furthest route) something constantly
piercing through out of the background like a wave function
explicitly describing the edges of body
sensitive like slabs dragged onto the surface of union
soon background noise will be betrayed by a new frequency
which will leave it all along with the tide

a may night

these days follow each other like minced
meat every set list revealing the decay

fireflies over the lakes millions of dead souls across
the marshes just the one explosion in the labs
residue in the narrow gullet of the woods blossoming

conflict between the locals and onslaughts of mist
who will cast the first stone who will swallow slime
call near animals who by hearing alone will read

the breakdown of systems as new tribes
won’t come won’t explain themselves

when the noise stops no
one will enter here again

Roman Honet

Between 1995 and 2008 the poet, Roman Honet, who was born in 1974), was the editor of the bimonthly literary and artistic magazine Studium. His poetry is representative of the trend known as the “emboldened imagination” (a term suggested by Marian  Stala), and he is also known as one of the new existentialists. He teaches creative writing at the School of Literary Arts, Jagiellonian University, Krakow.

on recalling

it is early evening camp fires, aniseed
particles on women’s lips. it is listening to
the whisper of motorways coated in a transparent
film of lights like the preparation of our epoch,
the chill of equalizers made by Diora, Radiotechnika,
Unitra. it was all that. boys
carrying the cobalt seas in their eyes and a spade,
they, who so far back fell under the spell of shadows,
engrossed, and now - look -
immense power expels them out of there,
awakens. costs of living have spiralled,
they say. a year gone by
and it’s all the same. the same void
has, then loses him

beach. christmas

at first, there is a stick thrown high,
motion in slowed sequences like the descent of crushed ore
through oxygen, a thoughtless dream. Bricks
licked with a steaming tongue,
chokeberry. a fairytale - about a bold knight. kites, dark lines
linking them with the hands of children on the beach, an air show
of refuelling blood mid-flight,

(the days are blind and tremble gently,
otokar balcy and alojzy mol)

then another month comes along. a year
different again. snow falling on desolate car parks,
on kings among men weighed down by their gifts:
nectar and a hook - suddenly birds, disturbed, their wings in neon
and thorns. then it’s christmas eve.
head surgery. from shadows

emerge long unseen guests
then fall back into shadows.

my dear departed -
I say - nothing connects us any more

Joanna Małgorzata Przybylska

Born in Lodz, Poland, in 1984, Joanna Małgorzata Przybylska, studied at the University of Lodz, graduating with degrees in sociology and Polish literature. She has won numerous poetry competitions, and her poems have been published in Arterie, Tygiel Kultury, Cegla and various anthologies. She works in a second-hand bookshop in the Limanka district of Lodz.

tell me babe

I don’t know how to be all alone in my poems,
I invent wicked men for company, never sure what it is
they’re made of, horseradish perhaps? rank, but good for you,
seeing they are particularly harmful and healthy and fit,
which may be why I value their company, without admitting to it.

I unleash hysterics and tell ugly tales about them, slanders
make little impression, they head for their summits unmoved.
I want to tell them apart before they set behind the sun, preserved
in jars, keeping verses alive.

joanna comes to the defence of pansies

yes, it’s because you never thought about the flowers,
across yellow wallpaper they escaped in search
of water. too late, they wilt, shrivel - now you should
glue, but I don’t want a dead wall. let’s let them

leave. yes, it’s because you’ll never understand, blurting:
women, pounding fists against dear departed roses,
until they stick for good, get their teeth into
the plasterboard, and then: you crying again? without me
you’d never blossom. it must have been tough, the laws
of physics broken. I asked; ease off, I’m cracking along

the yellowing wallpaper, won’t fit inside me all of the dead
carnations. yes, it’s because you always took me with a pinch,
without asking you unwrap, knot a lasso, and yet without me
you won’t catch, and again: hold here please.

Links:

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Off_
off-press.org

Krzysztof Ciemnołoński
ciemnolonski.pl

Jagiellonian University, Krakow
www.uj.edu.pl