GIRL GANG by Juliet Cook
Girl Gang by Juliet Cook
There are publications and there are works of art. Blood Pudding Press produces the later of the two. Each production is individual, handmade, embellished and most assuredly a collectible. The covers all have some form of adornment and the bindings are ribbon-stitched. The inner pages are art paper with beautiful type and clean, clean lay-out. Cherishable, absolutely cherishable.
GIRL GANG by Juliet Cook is a hard-nosed collection of poetry that humors the black satin ribbon binding. There’s no prom queen prissiness here. No ma’am! The brassiere-clad comic cutout of a handsome blonde postulating “ONE CAN’T STAY ON THE STRAIGHT AND NARROW PATH FOREVER” on the cover gave me immediate seque to the bawdiness within. Bingo! Inner flap holds a cut & paste “if I sleep over, can we play baby-sitter?” Add a cup of moxy !
Kicking out of the gate is “girl gang #1” – those “pink-lipsticked menaces, sinister molls/cinders implanted in raw knees” Oh, the delightful implications… These nubile of the darker side have an agenda with “hip flasks that clatter suspiciously/when they dance in the alley” and “flash of pale stomach like poisonous mushroom” .. that could be the direct result of the following poem “girl gang #2” ..
she tells the story about something awful
wrenching at her feet
trying to steal her secrets
trying to drag her into a back alley
wolf breath and frothing at the mouth
And she is hardened. She is calloused. She is a warrior….
she tells the story about how she took her revenge
her favorite part is the climax
her favorite part is the grand finale
in which she is jumping up & down
holding something bloody
pink nails flecked with pulp
and then further….
in which she is stomping & stomping & stomping
her own secrets into smithereens
so nothing can steal them so she can torture them
into stories with alternate endings
It’s a hard poem to read. It’s a real poem to digest. The texture of the pages gives a gritty feel to juxtapose the emotions I’m experiencing, the images I am seeing.
Cook introduces us to her girls; The Paper Cut Queen, Priscilla of the Pink Lipstick, Lulu the Mechanic, CandyDishDoom, Darlingtonia & Bananas Flambe’ in “girl gang #3” extolling their “special skills” .. Incredibly special, they assuredly are. Sexperts in the ways of deviance and dominance. Blood flowing as easily & readily as any other bodily fluid. A bevy of fetishes, eye shadows, hip flasks and bubble gum.
And what becomes of life every after? Why, these purveyors of Lolita-esque dreams just keep on keepin’ on. In “girl gang #5” the chicks are in their later 30’s, posturing indifference to “the hasty infiltration of gray hairs” or that “maybe 34 is a tad too old to be involved in a girl gang” .. But they persevere… “bartering bonbons for some underground botox” .. “Even when they swagger/like a pack of bruises” .. Bodacious! Or as Cook pens “mondo-foxy” !!
When these gals offer you up a “cherry bomb inside a cream puff” .. that ain’t no metaphor! These are the kind of babes that would “Taxiderm your holy body” with nary a flinch. But even these vixens of vitriol have “an expiration date” and they meet it in “girl gang #10” .. Their departures every bit as grisly as their existence. Still, there is a lingering fondness.. after all, they were just girls.. right?
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