Reading Lay Down & Get Lost is like cracking open a clothbound embroidered scrawl about the underbelly of bohemia. This is way more than a poetry book, it is a love letter and testament to misfits and renegades of all time, from Victorian times to the twenty-first century, Nikola Pepera takes us on her exquisite time traveling adventures across continents through the kingdom of psychedelia.
Our storyteller is an adult Alice in Wonderland, tripping on acid, whose enchanting stream of consciousness is endowed with a luxurious patchouli scent and hallucinogenic mental pictures. What are the odds of Charlie Chaplin, Andy Warhol and David Crosby crossing paths and crashing your party? One will make a plethora of iconic encounters via the wordsmith wizardry of Lady Pepera, from well known figures to underground legends, crossing dimensions to be scrutinized like a Persian rug, immured or revered for posterity, castigated in style or worshipped at the altar of jest.
The poetess has crafted a one of a kind realm which, if it were a potion, would have been brewing in a cauldron filled to the brim with Allen Ginsberg's scenic rhythm, Bukowski's dry wit, Vali Myers’ soulful flamboyance and Eve Babitz’ acute chronicling, sprinkled with some sage and a pinch of salt. This feels like sipping on the most delicious wine with Dorothy Parker whilst having Picasso paint your back, Rimbaud whispering bits and pieces of A Season in Hell in your ears and watching The Velvet Underground perform at the Psychiatrists’ convention in NYC circa 1966.
This word sorceress would have been burnt at the stake for her clairvoyance.
A master of all crafts, her illustrations are part and parcel of her hypnotic incantations and adorn the book with more dazzling opulence.
These paisley laced aphorisms are wrapped in vibrant velvet and filled with purple haze. Bask in the alluring and enticing aura of the secretary of insanity, Lay Down & Get Lost is bound to be a counterculture classic, it is the Holy Mountain of poetry.
Lay Down & Get Lost was released on Far West Press in 2024.
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