“Part-Truths” by Michael Pedersen
Published 2009 by Koo Press
UK price £5.00
www.koopress.co.uk
A twelve-course banquet of poetry, with cuts of prime rib and refreshing lemon sorbet, served up alongside stodgy rice pudding and, I’m afraid to say, liberal helpings of cheese.
Just flicking through the pamphlet (whose design is pleasing, if dull) it becomes clear that Pedersen is in need of a ruthless editor: most poems are heavy and form-free. That said, reading past this is often richly rewarded by a startling detail or observation.
A fine example of this is the collection’s opening poem, ‘Flowers’, which is full of obsolete or unimaginative details like “yellow” before sunflower, and sweat being “sticky and sweet”. Alongside this runs Pedersen’s tendency to slip into melodrama, where people are “keepers/ of uneasy conscience” and moments “live and die only once”. While of course these feelings are universal, it is the poet’s role to state the obvious in an unobvious way, and at times this pamphlet ignores this rule.
That said, of course, there are glorious moments within almost every poem, moments that make one despair that Pedersen has not been constructively edited. ‘Flowers’ is full of high points, such as the ballooning geckos in the background, and
Who’d have thought
skin rises like yeasty bread
not to mention the lyrical, “You will never drop those sighs/ into the sea”.
‘John’ was the poem I felt ought to have been the collection’s strongest. It focuses on the overdose of a flatmate, and has some strong imagery, for example:
I leave the hospital and you bleeping
like a dying smoke detector
and:
So you’re a Zimmer-frame crawler, shuffling along
as if walking on constant snow, feet throbbing
like frozen hands dunked in piping-hot water.
But then again, the poem is indulgently juvenile at times:
Yawning eyes fill with the leftover moisture
of sorrow squeezed from tear ducts.
One can’t help but think an older Pedersen will look back on lines like these with the embarrassment of re-reading a teenage diary.
Speaking of embarrassment, I would also love to ask the man himself if he ever reads ‘Contrasexual Cuddles’ at open mic sessions? I could hardly be described as prudish (and aged 23 myself, am not easy to shock) but found myself blushing furiously reading it. Even recalling it now I’m turning pink. . .
Obviously at the age of 24, Michael Pedersen is open to further life experience, and with some basic training in form and some encouragement in the ‘less is more’ approach, I feel his work could soon be a Michelin-starred dining experience.
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