Play With Me

Michael Pedersen

• Publisher: Birlinn
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9780857906205
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: European Poetry
• Index: Literature

The acclaimed Scottish poet's debut collection shares poems "so physical you can almost touch the images in them. Fabulously sensual and alive." (Stephen Fry).
Writer and performer Michael Pederson has built a reputation as a critically acclaimed poet-provocateur. His live readings are as memorable as they are witty, laced with an electric energy, as he recites his accessible yet deeply layered poetry from memory.
From NHS overdose clinics to overrun gardens, talking Cambodian treehouses to the teenage perversion of a young Scot on a French Exchange, the poems in Pedersen's first collection offer a rich and fantastical feast of flavors, landscapes and language. On the menu is everything from iced oysters and chateaubriand to pickled onions and Buckfast-soaked bread sticks.

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 throug...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Author biography
• Title page
• Copyright page
• 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
• Cowgate Syvers
• 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