Modern Goddess by The Poetry Virgins,
price £3.50
ISBN 978-0-9520090-0-9
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Published in 1992, this book contains 61 poems from the repertoire of the Poetry Virgins.
Bringing poetry to life is a talent in itself. Keeping it alive and kicking is an art. The Poetry Virgins have been practising this art all over the North East for five years, in pubs, in clubs, in bars, and even in draughty towers. It is partly what they read: fresh approaches to well tried themes, poems, old and new. It is partly the way they read it: everyone knows that they are enjoying themselves and the pleasure is infectious.
Fiona Cooper, writing in 1992
The Poetry Virgins were a female performance group of writers and actors: (above, left-to-right) Kay Hepplewhite, Fiona MacPherson, Charlie Hardwick, Julia Darling and Ellen Phethean.
Kay Hepplewhite explains:
Julia was doing a poetry reading in a private cinema in Newcastle, (the first of many strange venues for our performances), and she'd written a piece for several voices. It was a poem about giving birth. Two of us not having been through that experience, were in a state of virginity regarding that at least. We were all certainly new to group poetry readings.
"So what shall we call ourselves?" we wondered over Marmite on toast and red wine at Julia's kitchen table.
"Well, we've never done it before, so I suppose we're poetry virgins..."
So the Poetry Virgins were born, immaculately.
"Women not afraid to open their big mouths, break taboos, stand up and be wise and foolish"
Linda France
U.A. Fanthorpe commented:
"It was the foolish virgins who wasted the oil; these are the wise, the Poetry Virgins, in whose hands the oil of knowing what it is to be a woman, now, is not only treasured, but incandescent. Extra Virgin First Cold Pressing - and very, very funny."
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