Bells for Her
Samantha Ledger
About the Author
Samantha Ledger is a poet and photographer currently living on the outskirts of London. She is the author of Everybody Else’s Girl, and her work has been featured in numerous publications including Up the Staircase, Heroin Love Songs, Osprey Journal, Luciole Press and ETC: A Review of General Semantics. Bells for Her is Ledger’s second collection of poetry.
“Ledger’s approach to abuse and the patriarchal oppression of the feminine is never treated with pseudo-heroism or self-victimisation; rather her poems are strikingly honest and core-cutting, depicting love-hate relationships and painful ties. With effective, emotive accuracy, Ledger bravely explores the scope of rage, injustice, damage and sacrifice to appease and expiate the need of the perpetrator as well as the masochism of the abused - something not many have the courage to approach so openly.”
—Petra Whiteley, author of The Nomads Trail and The Moulding of Seers
ISBN 978-0-9819984-5-9
122 pages
$16.95
5.5"x8.5" perfect bound, paper
Excerpt
electra
Do not include me
in your wayward fondling.
I was rampant beneath these sheets
before
your hands shifted towards my warmth.
Swarming about a fragile frame -
blame riddled bone shafts
hollowed out until concave -
overworked.
I am Electra.
I dance naked underneath the moon
cold - blue skinned.
Slimmed to starved I am consuming
self centered cells -
melded maligned to divinity.
Your overwhelming urge to claim
girls as your own blood
floods my mouth
I am drowning.
Let me lay silent in your arms
as you pander the ample curve
of flesh.
Beneath shallow breath I am leaving.
Free, I shall slip from your embrace,
with grace I shall leave.
I am your biology.
Bound with fists and flushed passion
fashioned from Freud’s own text.
Watch me I am burning -
ash lifting into blood red skies,
I am spread sprawling bawling
spawning a multitude stillborn lies.
I am my own complex.
I am Electra.
Reviews
“What is immediately noticeable when reading Bells for Her is its unflinching intimacy. Equal parts warm and torturous, tender then disturbed, it encompasses the full gamut of contemporary life and human emotions. Bells for Her is the poetic equivalent of a woman laid bare, beckoning you with all her power.”
—A.D. Hitchin, author of Holy Hermaphrodite