Book Review
Victorian Days and Punk Rock Nights
by Ladyaslan
★★★★★
Quite a trip with Ladyaslan
Ladyaslan’s poetry is up to interpretation. It’s felt, rather than comprehended. Readers will probably relate to it on very different levels. As I read, I found each one of her poems to be unique, and seemed to evoke a different mood from the preceding or the following. “A Collective Imprint” I took as a young, city-dweller’s account of being trapped in a sort of urban blight. In “Hallowed Evenings” she tells us that Halloween is about something much deeper than trick or teat and costumes, and “Desire and Pain” is a lighter account of a tour through a S&M dungeon, or so I gathered. Even the entries that left me scratching my head, at least made me ponder, rather than just wanting to immediately move on. Her metaphors throughout her poems also cover a wide range, from the obvious to the ambivalent. Sometimes it isn’t until the last line that you realize the entire poem was a metaphor for something sublime.
Her accounts on attending the first Lollapalooza Music Festival in 1991 is one of the few non-poetic entries in this book and it’s a gas. She describes her acid-laced ventures around the Central Florida Fairgrounds after being ditched with the group she arrived with and meeting and hanging out with Ice-T (among others) while bands like Nine Inch Nails and Living Colour provided the background music to her adventures..
This seems like it would be one of those curled-up-next-to-a-fire-on-a-stormy-night good reads, and I’m sure the grade school English teacher Ladyaslan cites as an inspiration and dedicates this book to, would be proud. If you’re fortunate enough to get a signed copy from the author, it will smell like Turquatic perfume by MAC, the author’s signature scent.
About the author
Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, Chris flirted with the music business there and in Nashville before joining the U.S. Army and serving in South Korea. He remained in Asia for several years afterwards, teaching English, traveling, and covering the regional entertainment scenes. Currently in a mindset between Seoul and San Francisco, besides Idol Features, you can also catch his writings in the print edition of the monthly magazine, Effective.
