On the 25th September we'll be publishing E.D. Evans brilliant book of bemused, dark, outraged and experienced poetic storytelling, 'Time For My Generation To Die'. In which she brings places, times and situations starkly to life and transports you there, into the punk clubs, the dark recesses, the broken relationships and cheek by jowl city living, on both sides of the Atlantic, that characterise her insightful work.
Many copies from the initial print run are going out now in the post to reviewers at magazines, blogs, podcasts and fanzines, and if you'd like to treat yourself and read a copy, get in touch now. We're sending them all over the UK and Europe, with Edie and her blind cat Harry, helping in the US of A.
'Time For My Generation To Die' is broken into five main sections; Western Ballads, US News and World Report, What Price Fame?, Tainted Love and Eastern Ballads, all of which will resound with you, but some maybe more than others depending on where you live and your own experiences. Londontown, from Eastern Ballads, is a great example, that I could picture clearly...
LONDONTOWN
Boots and glory, Londontown, Old Union Jack and leather. A man can only count on change
Nowt stays the same forever.
Trite as shite as it might sound,
that is how we hit the ground,
Reckless Punks in DM boots
and Trendy Mods in skinny suits.
Got pissed at after-hours pubs when the filth was on the beat. They smashed us with their billy clubs
Then, Londontown was not so sweet.
Black and white skanked arm-in-arm
to Reggae, Ska, and Dub’s hot scene.
But Skins turned into racist pigs
committing violent acts obscene.
Margaret Thatcher made life hell,
Despair raged down an endless hole.
Jobs were scarce, my friends were skint,
signing on to get their dole.
The boys were hard, the girls were tough,
romance did not exist. We slammed to tunes while garage bands
spat at us to Resist.
We broke squats on the Loughborough Road
and lived from day-to-day. Brick alleys smelled of piss and chips and curry take-away.
We were not Hippie Boomers
We were Generation Jones.
Speed and smack insomniacs
who worshipped dust and bones.
There’s not much left to talk about
that hasn’t yet been said. So many of us from that scene are fucked, sober, or dead.
At night, the two-tone sirens wail their ancient, vacant sound for all the Rastas, Punks, and Scooter Mods
who once ruled Londontown.
E.D. Evans is a lifelong poet. Having spent time in both London and New York during Punk’s original heyday in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, Evans has always comfortably floated between those two worlds. She became deeply entrenched in New York’s East Village art scene that was so pervasive in the 1980s/90s, spending years performing spoken word poetry at venues such as The Nuyorican Poets Café, Brownies, and The Knitting Factory. Her Instagram handle, @originalpunkster11 says it all.
“I’ve always liked to tell dark stories that rhyme, so hopefully my words translate into the ethos and audience for which it is intended. What a lot of young Punks today may not realize is that even back in the day, Punk was always about acceptance and inclusion. We were what we were—basically a bunch of creative misfits looking for our tribe, with a great soundtrack to boot. And when we found each other, it was a glorious thing.”
Evans currently features her spoken word on social media platforms, and is collaborating with an array of visual artists and musicians to bring her poetry to life. She lives in the Sonoran Desert with parrots, a blind cat, lots of backyard lizards, and a madly talented multi-instrumentalist.
'Time For My Generation To Die' by E. D. Evans will be be available from all good book and record shops from 25th September, and all online stores too, including direct from E I Books, where it can be pre-ordered now and comes with a poster of Natalie Woodson's superb cover art illustration.
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