Play With Me E-Book

Michael Pedersen

• Herausgeber: Polygon
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Seitenzahl: 34

Beschreibung

From NHS overdose clinics to overrun gardens, talking Cambodian treehouses to the teenage perversion of a young Scot on a French Exchange, Pedersen's poetry is a rich and fantastical feast of flavours, landscape and language. On the menu is everything from iced oysters and chateaubriand to pickled onions and Buckfast-soaked bread sticks. Like the man himself, these poems will tingle toes and raise eyebrows in equal measures. Michael Pederson is slowly building a reputation as a name to look out for, and has received plaudits from Stephen Fry and Irvine Welsh; as a spoken work poet, his readings are as memorable as they are witty, laced with an electric energy, as he recites from memory his highly engaging, accessible poetry. Michael Pederson, along with Kevin Williamson, hosts Neu! Reekie!, avant-garde nights of poetry, music and animated short films.

Leseprobe

Michael Pedersen (b. 1984) is a poet, playwright and animateur with an electric reputation on the performance circuit and a prolific precedent of collaborations, having teamed up with some of the UK’s top musicians, filmmakers and artists. His inaugural chapbook Part-Truths (Koo Press) was a Callum MacDonald Memorial Award finalist; its sequel The Basic Algebra of Buttering Bread (Windfall Books) received flocks of reviewer plaudits. Play with Me is his (much anticipated) first full-length collection. Michael is co-founder and circus master at Neu! Reekie! – now one of the country’s most formidable literary nights and DIY record labels – and a key creative within Dream Tower Productions. He’s also the lyricist for cult band Jesus, Baby! and has written short plays for various troupes including the National Theatre of Scotland

http://www.facebook.com/neureekie

@NeuReekie

[email protected]

This eBook edition published in 2013 by Birlinn Limited West Newington House Newington Road Edinburgh EH9 1QSwww.birlinn.co.ukwww.polygonbooks.co.uk

This edition first published in Great Britain in 2013 by Polygon, an imprint of Birlinn Ltd

Copyright © Michael Pedersen 2013 Illustrations copyright © Carrie May 2013

The right of Michael Pedersen to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patent Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without the express written permission of the publisher.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-85790-620-5 Print ISBN: 978-1-84697-260-7

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Contents

Acknowledgements

I

Colmar

RIP Porty High School

Midnight Cowboys

Laddie at Heart

Greenhouse Ganglands

Quitting Cheese

Shapes of Every Size

Feathers and Cream

Owen

CJ Easton

Manchester John

The Raven by My Writing Desk

II

Tom Buchan (1931–1995)

Edinburgh Festival

With Divine Ovation

Battle Cruisers

Heredity

Jobseeker

When I Fell in the Bog

In Marrakesh

III

Newscast

Justice Locale

Arching Eyebrows and a Chalked Door

Hello. I am Cambodia

Postcard Home

BoomTown

From the Right Bank

No. 58, Slorkram, Siem Reap

Network: Cambodia

IV

X Marks the Spot

Fever

Expired Treasure / Broken Bulbs

Hello Bréon

Paris in Spring

The End Was Colourful

The Day Is Dreich

Dead Skin and Stray Fingernails

Water Features

Acknowledgements

Some of these poems have been published in:

Gutter; Northwards Now; Markings; Streetcake; Popshot; New Linear Perspectives; The Leither; nth position; Sentinel; One Night Stanza; etcetera; ink, sweat and tears; poet and geek; The Journal; 3:AM Magazine; The Delinquent; anything anymore anywhere; The Poetry Kit; Read This Magazine; Reach Poetry; The Skinny; Part-Truths (Koo Press) and The Basic Algebra of Buttering Bread (Windfall Books).

With thanks to those who helped along the way:

Ma and Pa; Carla Easton; Bréon George Ridell; Bill Ryder-Jones; KWD; Tom Bryan; Jonathan Freemantle; Kevin Williamson; Jesus, Baby! and Neu! Reekie!

And a mighty fond thanks to that over-worked editor o’ mine, Gerry Cambridge.

I

Colmar

is a matrix of criss-cross canals, capitale des vins d’Alsace,

where, at thirteen, on the school French exchange,

I met Elodie Mullan.

All summer, would insist on cwassonts, slurp expresso

and harshly defame Scotland;

for I knew nothing of our propinquity to the Rhine

or Vosges Mountains, only that Elodie lived a stone’s throw

away, and with craned neck out the attic window

I could see her boodwhar, where there must have been

frequent episodes of nakedness.

Our moments were few: sat side by side on a boat tour;

locked hands walking through a rusting vineyard; were

dancing partners for three songs, linked

together like salted pretzels.

A photograph of us, in partial embrace, reveals Elodie,

alluring as Julie Delpy, me in a Scotland strip

with peroxide-blond hair. The sky, like the shirt,

ultramarine, and me blushing rouge from little-boy syndrome.

I used to dream of returning a celebrity,

with histrionics and extravagance. It would have been

horrendous: white limo, champagne, skunk, one-liners –

a scene from a tawdry hip-hop video.

Nowadays, I’d explain how a poem is like a bomb,

a bomb like a poem; assembled correctly, both

explode, they don’t arrive, become

instantly important – as she did and could again.