Yesterday, I spent many wonderful, and thankfully cool, hours investigating this intriguing femme fatale. Her name is Maila Elizabeth Niemi, but she’s better known to fans of kitsch horror as Vampira. As with so many theatricals there is a deal of ‘creating your own persona’ in her history – which I love – but it was her portrayal of a beatnik poet in the 1959 film The Beat Generation that drew me to her. The complicated fabricated history was just a bonus. She’s even been paid homage to by the punk band The Damned.
Do check her story out and I look forward to further immortalising this complex woman in the poem I’m currently working on.
Published by Karen Downs-Barton
Karen Downs-Barton is an award winning poet. Minx, her first collection, is published by Chatto and Windus, Penguin Random House in March 2025. Her pamphlet, Didicoy, won the 2022 International Book and Pamphlet Competition and was the Poetry Book Society recommended pamphlet 2023. Her writing incorporates experimental form and multilingualism alongside lyric pieces exploring an Angloromani heritage, times in state child care, and in diverse occupations including a magician's assistant. Karen has appeared on BBC Radio 4's The Verb, Ledbury Literature Festival, and is currently touring, promoting Minx. Karen gained a Doctorate in Creative Writing from King's College, London and is a regular workshop facilitator for Creative Future UK. Follow her on social media at: @downsbarton Instagram, @karendownsbarton.bsky.social
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Karen Downs-Barton 