Some Things Are Better Left Unsaid
by Adelle Stripe
Published by Blackheath Books
Publication date: July 2008
Some Things Are Better Left Unsaid…
…and some things are better written down.
Adelle Stripe’s debut poetry collection is a poignant collection of works that announces an individual new voice in modern poetry.
Influences and inspiration for this collection are drawn from the changing face and increased gentrification of London’s East End (‘Asalam Walai Kum’ offers perhaps the most accurate portrayal of Brick Lane yet, while ‘Chequebook Vandalism’ is nothing short of a protest at the ruthless economic re-shaping of a pre-Olympics East London, a place where “bankers with briefcases build their new temples”), out to the rural fields and hills of contemporary Britain (areas of study include The Lake District and The Black Mountains of Wales), and back to the personal space of rented rooms in the city.
Though Stripe’s voice is resolutely contemporary, traditional forms are referred to in the shape of sestinas, pantoums, terza rimas, and the sparse, wine-fuelled lines of early Chinese masters such as Li Po.
Love and sexuality feature in equal measure here, as do ruminations on the minutiae of modern existence: from stealing smokes during adolescence to bicycle rides through Elephant & Castle. Her poems reflect the chaos of a city “whose tinnitus still rings in my ear”, and inspiration is drawn from an encounter with Billy Childish, the songs of Nick Drake, gypsy folklore, and the Palm Tree pub.
Adelle Stripe has an original, sharp, and caustic style; holding an audacity and confidence - taking the reader from the dramatic clouded peak of Helvellyn through to the scrum of the Saturday shop-floor of Primark in Peckham within the same poem.
Collectively the works form a portrait of a wild imagination disciplined enough to nail down clear lines with intimacy and economy.
Some Things Are Better Left Unsaid is a unique work; it is part confession, part protest – and is a self assured debut from a country girl (she is the daughter of a dairy farmer) finding her balance in the heart of the East End.
Praise for Brutalism One: Nowhere Fast
“This series of blank verse ruminations on the horrors of small town living are among the most open and direct poems in circulation today."
The Roundtable Review March ’08
"These are poems for the modern generation; they thrust the underbelly of Britain that we all try so desperately to ignore straight in our faces. With all the agony that these realisations bring, there is a constant beacon of hope bursting from the pages.”
Caught in the Crossfire
"Remembering has rarely been so rewarding ..like postcards from places you’ve been to but long since forgotten."
Shortlist February ’08
About the author
Adelle Stripe was born in 1976. She is a poet, editor, journalist and copywriter. Originally from Tadcaster, Yorkshire – she lives in Peckham and is a BA student at Greenwich University. Now widely recognised as the first literary movement to be founded on MySpace, alongside Tony O’Neill and Ben Myers - Adelle is a co-founder of The Brutalists. Her writing has been published in Succour, Brand, Savage Kick, Full Moon Empty Sports Bag, The Stool Pigeon, The Times, Paris Bitter Hearts Pit, 3:AM, Flux, Laura Hird, Scarecrow, Rising Poetry, Social Disease and Beat the Dust. She edits Straight from the Fridge (the definitive Brutalist weblog) and hopes to return to the country to pursue a career in beekeeping sometime before her 35th birthday.
Adelle Stripe adelle@indstrength.com
Straight from the Fridge www.upbondageupyours.blogspot.com