Interview with Leni King by Waid Books

INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR LENI KING

Leni (short for Eleni) King is a British-Greek Lesbian writer who has produced several poetry collections and short stories.  King’s work has been acclaimed for it’s in-depth erotic insights into lesbian life as well as powerful and evocative imagery.  In her collection of poetry, Lesbian Juices, readers will find both hot and steamy erotic poetry as well as thought-provoking, romantic and spiritual poems.

Question 1:  Which do you find drives you more as an artist, your head or your heart?

I would have to say my heart.  Since my poems are about lesbian love, they are driven by the love of women and a desire to express myself in the poetic form.  Sales and ambition are about the head, but it’s the desire for freedom of expression that gives me a buzz – and poetry can go beyond what prose or other forms of art can offer.  As a lesbian, this expression is especially important since our world has been such a taboo subject until recent years.

Question 2:  How does your poetry reflect who you are as a person?

My poems are fictional, but inevitably some are loosely based on my own experience.  For example, Brighton Belle was written after a one night stand.  At the time I felt rejected that the girl did not want to continue things.  However, with time I realized that this experience was a turning point in breaking away from my painful past.   Here is a sample:

You were my warming
My universe calling

I couldn’t comprehend
Or cope just then
To find
The joy
Of the Divine
Within
Every 
Living
Thing

Question 3:  Where do you see yourself (literature-wise) in 5 years?  Do you envision turning any of your work into stage plays or movies?

Wow, Waid Books – that’s an exciting idea – stage plays or movies?  Perhaps when I finally publish my novel, but it’s harder to adapt poetry for the big screen!  In five years time it would be great to have a novel published and some more poetry collections on the shelves and to have reached a wider audience and continued to get great feedback.

Question 4:  Who are some other authors that inspire your poetry?

Black feminist poet Audre Lorde (1934 – 1992) was an outspoken lesbian that I admire. Her poetry was highly political and she saw verse as an important medium to challenge all forms of discrimination and injustice.  I Agree with her sentiment:

“Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought.  The farthest horizons of our hopes and fears are cobbled by our poems, carved from the rock experiences of our daily lives.”

To see the rest of the interview please go to
http://www.waidbooks.blogspot.gr/2013/06/newsletter-june-1-2013.html

Leni King’s Liebster Award Interview!

Firstly, I am sending tons of cyber-hugs of gratitude back to Loz, (http://littleaussielezzy.com/) who so kindly nominated me for the prestigious Liebster Award!! What a massive honour!!!

Liebster is the German for favourite. The rules of the Liebster Award is as follows:

First, thank the person who nominated you. Second, answer the eleven questions they asked you. Third, nominate eleven other people (the 200 or less followers rule appears to be breakable), and last but not least – ask them eleven questions in return.

So thanks again lovely Loz mate – I admire your work so much – and to think you feel the same about me is mind blowing!!!! I really enjoyed your interview for your award – especially its humour and honesty – and I too believe we each have a twin soul out there waiting. It’s a needle in a haystack multiplied by a trillion trying to find them, but the Universe gives us a lot of signs and half-memories along the way – so the trick is to follow the signs…. and your heart – no matter where it leads.

Someone on Goodreads recently asked me as a condition of being a friend, ‘what is the meaning of life?’ The answer was easy – Love. My poetry is all about sharing that first and foremost with lesbians, but after that with anyone with an open-minded enough to get the picture.

So, without further ado, its time for the fun to start with some intensely delightful personal questions from Loz.

1. What did you have for breakfast this morning?
That’s an easy one, fresh and dried fruit, Greek rye bread, cranberry juice – a girl has to stay healthy for whatever the day will bring!!
2. Do you always wear underwear? If not, how often do you free-lip it?
Ha, ha, love this question, Loz. Sometimes in the mornings I just put jogging pants on and in the summer I wear very loose boxers as shorts and free-lip it. But I need soft cotton between my nether lips and a pair of jeans!
3. Favourite body part on a woman? Please oh please, don’t answer “her mind”. Aargh… I’m shooting for shallow and playful here!
That’s a tough one as there are so many! Her arse is a definite favourite – perhaps because it is such a taboo area and I love to gently spank it too! But deep inside her pussy and soul is where it’s at….
4. Ever fallen asleep somewhere you shouldn’t have? Where was it?
I can fall asleep anywhere. I once fell truly sound asleep on a school chemistry table as part of a class experiment on breathing. I also once overslept for an exam – for my English literature degree of all things! I had to be ‘quarantined’ when I finally arrived and was allowed to take the exam in the first aid room!! But I am happy to report I have never fallen asleep during sex… at least not with a woman!!!!
5. If you were a stripper/porn star what would you call yourself?
Oooh, Loz you ask the naughtiest questions! Lez-Lips perhaps (since you brought up the subject of those, lol)!
6. If I created lezzy utopia would you want to live there?
The closest thing on earth to Lesbian utopia is Eressos in Lesbos Greece. I go there some summers and have an idyllic time – but after 2 weeks I need to go back home with my gf – there is only so much I can take of a bunch of dykes all at once!
7. What’s the theme song to your life?
That’s easy. A fortune teller once told me the theme song of my life and It’s proved true ever since – Frank Sinatra’s I Did it My Way. Regrets? I have had a few, but then again, too few to mention…
8. Best song/music to play during sex?
Mostly we make our own music…
9. What’s your favourite joke?
Well it’s not my favourite – but the best I can do for now – and I can get away with it since I have Irish distant relatives…
What do you call an Irish lesbian?
Gaylick!
10. Do you have body piercings? If so, where?
Only the ears –plus all the piercings my cat does leaping off my lap suddenly!
11. What’s something about you that’s quirky, unusual or surprising?
People say it’s the openness (pun intended) of my poems – the deeply erotic but at the same time intensely moving and spiritual nature that takes them by surprise. I am talking here about the poems in my book, ‘Lesbian Juices’ – many of which are at an even deeper level than those on the blog and are extremely erotic and arousing…

All that remains now is for me to nominate the 11 blogs that in turn deserve the prestigious Liebster Award. Of course the first would be http://littleaussielezzy.com/ but she nominated me for the prize!  Apologies I have still not worked out how to embed the links better (tips welcome!).

Quite a few nominees are lesbian blogs, others are erotic or other creative writers I admire both for their work and support of other writers. And on that note I would also like to mention Tameca at http://www.waidbooks.com/ – I don’t think she has a blog but is an awesome writer and supporter of other writers via twitter, facebook and her website.
So here goes – If anyone has a Liebster already and I did not know – now you have two!
http://myaddictedobsession.wordpress.com/
http://rainbowconnections6746.wordpress.com/
http://justuskissing.me/
http://lesbianlitchick.com/
http://ravenlsmith.wordpress.com/
http://ekisjan.wordpress.com/
http://kirstywirsty.wordpress.com/
http://intensesensations.wordpress.com
http://www.billierosie.blogspot.com
http://opusangelicus.com/
http://thepenelopejones.wordpress.com/
And here are the questions to qualify for your award my friends:
1. What was the main thing that led to you creating your blog?
2. What is your dream?
3. If you had to give one piece of advice in life – what would it be?
4. Which famous lesbian (dead or alive) do you admire most and why?
5. Which not-so-famous lesbian do you admire most and why?
6. What is your view on lesbian and gay marriage?
7. What is the thing about sex between 2 women (or 2 men) that turns you on the most?
8. What do you believe, or would you like to believe, if anything, happens to our spirits after we die?
9. Is there such a thing as eternal love?
10. Where is the strangest place you ever had sex?
11. What 3 tips can you give to any would-be successful blogger?

Love to all my dear followers

Look out for my interview – all is revealed in personal probing questions!!!

Wow! A witty inspiring interview from you dear LittleAussieLezzie! Thanks for the nomination and great questions! Getting excited already! Hugs

After All

Savouring your saucy
Yet angelic smile,
As you slumber still
I drink in your visage,
An addiction
Stronger than any pill.

The smell of your sex
On my fingers, legs, face
Thoughts of shameless positions
Last night’s delicious disgrace.

(Extract is two stanzas from the 9 verse poem “After All” in my upcoming collection, Lesbian Juices II – not available yet, but Click on the cover Right to buy Lesbian Juices Volume I in the meantime)

How many orgasms can she have in an hour? Click on link below to find out!

How many orgasms can she have in an hour?

http://tinybytes.me/facts/omg-facts-about-orgasms?v=Ja4jmZfIkrQ_s21r5VlCAHRY0sUxUhNMYYcdxVQ0yzzaqO5IJnfK-XmFaVOuyHI6q4ZzHeczlOes5Korx02N6A&pid=98168&utm_source=mylikes&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=ml&utm_term=23959928

Happy Women’s Day!

Ok, the hour is a little late, but that only makes this short poem from a liberated woman of the early twentieth century all the more apt!

First Fig
My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends–
It gives a lovely light!
— Edna St Vincent Millay

More on history of erotic lesbian poetry from Leni King

A more erotic and extrovert poet was another New Englander of the nineteenth and early twentieth century –  the butch, cigar-smoking Amy Lowell (1874 –1925) who was first inspired to write when she met actress Eleonora Duse. However her true love was another actress, Ada Russell. The two were together for 15 years. The poem, A Decade, was written to celebrate their anniversary and contrasts sex with Ada when they met with their sex after 10 years together. The double meaning of ‘came’ is surely intentional.

When you came, you were like red wine and honey,
And the taste of you burnt my mouth with its sweetness.
Now you are like morning bread,
Smooth and pleasant.
I hardly taste you at all for I know your savour,
But I am completely nourished

Black feminist poet Audre Lorde (1934-1992) was another outspoken lesbian. Her poetry was highly political and she saw verse as an important medium to challenge all forms of discrimination and injustice. After it was suggested to her that poetry is a luxury, Lorde wrote:

“Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought. The farthest horizons of our hopes and fears are cobbled by our poems, carved from the rock experiences of our daily lives.”

And in her essay, Uses of the Erotic: The erotic as Power, she describes the importance of women recognizing, expressing and sharing our erotic feelings.

Adrienne Cecile Rich (1929 –2012) is another famous American poet, essayist and ardent feminist. In an article in The Guardian newspaper in 2010 where she looked back at her controversial and prolific life she spoke how  “The suppressed lesbian I had been carrying in me since adolescence began to stretch her limbs.” This was evident in Twenty-One Love Poems (1977), which was later embedded into Dream of a Common Language (1978), and exhibited a strong study of lesbian eroticism. Other such collections include A Wild Patience Has Taken Me This Far (1981).

Lorde and Rich influenced poets such as Eileen Myles, born in 1949, a contemporary lesbian poet dubbed by Bust Magazine as “the rock star of modern poetry.” Myles founded the St. Marks Poetry Project and edited The New Fuck You, with Liz Kotz, which received a Lambda Book Award and has won numerous other awards for her work. Here is an extract from “Dear Andrea”:

I love you too
don’t fuck up my hair
I can’t believe
you almost fisted me
today.
That was great.

In The Lesbian Poet (a talk given at St. Mark’s Poetry Project in New York’s East Village), Myles describes how [a lesbian] “unwriting herself, flooding the world with her details, standing in such an endangered place, could be free.”

What an inspiration – daring to share extreme erotic images of lesbian life and liberating oneself and our readers in the process!

Another award-winning lesbian poet is Jamaica-born activist Staceyann Chin (born 1972). Her work has been published in the New York Times and her many TV appearances include The Oprah Winfrey Show. One of her most well-quoted pieces is Faggot Haiku (a three line poem):

Faggots reach into
their own asses we are not
afraid of our shits

Echoing Miles’ ‘unwriting’ concept, the Haiku is about not being afraid to express oneself to as wider audience as possible.

The lesbian poets briefly touched on in this blog piece provide a legacy and a poetic canvass that enables all poets to be truly inspired to share their experiences and to understand the juxtaposition between the erotic, the creative and the politics of sexuality.

About Leni King:

Leni (short for Eleni) King is a British-Greek Lesbian writer who has produced several poetry collections and short stories. King’s work has been acclaimed for its in-depth erotic insights into lesbian life as well as powerful and evocative imagery. In her collection of poetry, Lesbian Juices readers will find both hot and steamy erotic poetry as well as thought-provoking, romantic and spiritual poems.

Inspired to write Erotic Lesbian Poetry – a Quick Romp Through Time

Guest Post by Leni King “Inspired to write Erotic Lesbian Poetry – a Quick Romp Through Time” http://sex-toys-blog.co.uk/?p=4565

Guest Post on Sh! by Leni King

Poetry is a medium well suited to sensual and arousing images, more so than fiction in many ways due to its greater freedom of expression and ability to break the rules, juxtaposing many ideas at once and evoking a very personal interpretation for the reader.

Scarce though it may be on our bookshelves and ebook files, erotic lesbian poetry is not a new idea – it has been around for eons. The word erotic derives from the Greek word eros, which means love in all its forms. Erotic poetry can be traced back to at least sixth century B.C. to the writings of the great Sappho, a Greek lesbian who lived on the island Lesbos, which in those days was the hub of lyric poetry and female liberation.

Indeed, the word lesbian derives from the name of the island  of Sappho’s birth. She spent much of her time in Eressos, Lesbos – a place where the writer of this article also finds is an inspiration for her poetry.

Sappho had a passion for erotic life and many of her poems are powerful sexual ‘hymns’ to Aphrodite. She was also dubbed the ‘10th Muse’ and the only woman amongst the nine lyric poets in antiquity. Other Lesbian poets of sixth century B.C. included Terpander and Alcaeus.

These fragments (in translation) are not unlike the daring imagery one might see in the best contemporary lesbian writers or poets, exhibiting animalistic metaphors of submission, rejection, pleasure:

Again love, the limb-loosener, rattles me bittersweet, irresistible, a crawling beast.

As a wind in the mountains assaults an oak, Love shook my breast…

Honestly, I wish I were dead.

Weeping many tears, she left me and said,

“Alas, how terribly we suffer, Sappho.

I really leave you against my will.”

Read the rest of this article on http://sex-toys-blog.co.uk/?p=4565

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