Eton’s PVC Poet

“Patience Agbabi, a bisexual, radical-feminist performance artist with cropped hair and tattoos, has been called ‘the PVC poet’ by the British media because of the lesbian, sadomasochistic and drug themes featured in her poetry. (PVC, or polyvinyl chloride, is used to make the shiny black material that is commonly worn by dominatrixes.) Ms. Agbabi earned this label during her recent, unusual assignment: writer in residence at Eton College, one of the oldest boarding schools in Britain, and almost certainly its grandest.”