Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Oyster by Michael Pedersen Oyster. Written by Michael Pedersen / Illustrated by . Paperback. Share: Reviews. Pedersen's poems exist in a febrile realm of heightened emotion; they come pouring across the page like a rowdy crowd at a Hogmanay street party [with] an infectious enthusiasm for the downright amazingness of existence' Scotsman. About the Book. Oyster is the second collection from prize-winning poet Michael Pedersen. From Grez-sur-Loing and festive nights to sizzling summers stretched out in the Meadows and Portobello, Michael Pedersen’s unique brand of poetry captures a debauchery and a disputation of characters, narrated with an intense honesty and a love of language that is playful, powerful and penetrative; he vividly illuminates scenes with an energy that is both witty, humourous but also deeply intelligent. Oyster is iced, spiced, baked and beaming for your pleasure. Oyster features bespoke illustrations from lead singer and songwriter Scott Hutchison. ‘Oyster’ by Michael Pedersen, with illustrations by Scott Hutchison. This is the second poetry collection from Michael Pedersen, following 2013’s deservedly well-received Play With Me . Pedersen is well known as a co-founder of the Neu! Reekie! collective, which organizes nights of poetry, music and, if this collection is anything to go by, debauchery. Indeed, the poet’s preoccupation with hedonism – sex, drugs and alcohol all feature – puts you in mind of the Beat poets. What really distinguishes this collection, though, is a combination of verbal ingenuity and, courtesy of Scott Hutchison, characterful and witty accompanying illustrations. The best of the poems have a sensual lyricism that transcends both the Bohemian excesses and the apparent capriciousness. In ‘Obsessive Cannibal Love Poem’, for example, Pedersen writes: the biscuits I brought to snack on are your bones baked and sweetened; like counting stars I do not think I will ever be done kissing you: honey all over and deep inside, I will swallow your dancing tongue. The writing is clear, accessible and immediate – as befits on-stage performance, no doubt, but at times it suggests the simultaneous lightness of touch and depth of insight characteristic of, say, Norman MacCaig or Simon Armitage. Pedersen muses over playful questions as well as large emotions. In ‘Starry-Eyed’ he asks ‘can a bell ring underwater?’; in the title poem he wonders ‘How does tongue taste to oyster?’ before concluding ‘Best not to know.’ The lively humour present in the words and images contributes greatly to the book’s winning charisma, and helps to over-ride the occasional lapse into outdated Kerouac-esque bluster or potential self-mythologising (as in ‘Invitation to Luncheon with Caddy D’ and ‘Manchester John: Episode II’). The most successful poems tend towards dynamism, through their sheer verbal energy and their restless subject matter: Birds and trains I love to wake to, our great migrants, custodians of perpetual movement, fucking fascinating things – one engineered majesty, the other … in fact that goes fur both. (‘Birds and Trains’) Pedersen’s imagery is often a startling delight. ‘I’m a PC’ begins with an arresting image: ‘Reilly’s chest puffs out like/a pair of bibles.’ Elsewhere the poet combines the ordinary and the extraordinary to appreciable effect: I love you, she said, with the mechanical bareness of a warden clamping a car to the pavement, the payment meter and itself … (‘Gravity’) The fine, daft, clever poem ‘Transmorphosizing’ describes how a carpenter turns into a chest of drawers: The middle drawer was his heart – it had fallen off the runners, jammed so tightly that to open it would split the delicate wood; it would remain closed, widowed. This is typical Pedersen – to take an unlikely image and escalate it from a point of potential whimsy (the carpenter is called Chester Drawers) to a deeper, more affecting place altogether. When Pedersen receives a text from his girlfriend (herself a terrific poet) concerning ‘Humping Cows’, he composes a poem that begins ‘Dear Hollie/Let them hump’ before seeing in his support for their freedom to, er, love ‘a spirited free-thinking move/towards righteousness, beatitude/tender songs. But I’m no fur fooling/nae one, I’m love-struck and horny.’ It’s the love-struck rather than the horny Pedersen that writes the best poems, the ones that are filled with a life-affirming wonder. It is also this mature, more socially motivated Pedersen that approaches the subject of racism in ‘Conversation Overheard in Craigmillar Dental Practice’, a powerful and indeed unshakeable poem. The conversation, whether transcribed or invented (and I’d guess the former), is horribly plausible: ‘They’d huv you think you were sending them off to the electric chair rather than back to their ain fuckin country’; ‘Now I was thinking, eh – and hopefully you agree wi me – I’d rather be robbed off a Scot than yin o’ them any day.’ Here Pedersen confronts unpleasant attitudes with a detachment, a lack of commentary that results in a poem that is more, not less, disarming and effective; he allows the racism to present its own ugliness, with no overt additional judgement needed. Scott Hutchison’s illustrations deserve a special mention. They are by turns imaginative, amusing, sensual and provocative and thus they provide a perfect visual accompaniment to the poems. Hutchison is best known as a musician, but it is no surprise to learn that he studied illustration at the School of Art. On the evidence of his work in Oyster , it is very much to be hoped that he will provide artwork for more books in the future. The poetry scene in Scotland has undergone some fascinating changes in recent years. Many Scottish poets of previous generations – such as Edwin Morgan and Iain Crichton Smith – were more comfortable, I think it’s fair to say, writing for the page than performing on the stage. Yet the contemporary writer is often expected to have a triple-layered presence: on the page, on the stage and online. The ebook version of Oyster is supplemented with audio recordings of the poet reading eleven of the pieces in the collection. While there are undeniably poets whose performance and/or social media skills surpass their literary merit, perhaps the future lies with poets like Pedersen who excel at all three. The poem ‘Oyster’ features a line that could equally apply to this vivid and spirited book: ‘oyster has many magics’. Oyster by Michael Pederson, illustrated by Scott Hutchison, is published by Polygon, 2017. Kevin MacNeil. Kevin MacNeil is a novelist, poet, screenwriter, editor and playwright from the Outer Hebrides. He is the author of books such as The Brilliant & Forever and The Diary of Archie the Alpaca , and editor of Robert Louis Stevenson: An Anthology (Selected by JL Borges and A Bioy Casares) and These Islands, We Sing . MacNeil has won numerous awards and currently lectures in creative writing at the University of Stirling. Related Articles. ‘If This Were Real’ by Gerda Stevenson. Gerda Stevenson is one of Scotland’s great renaissance women, equally gifted at acting, directing and writing. She has written, adapted and performed in numerous radio plays, as well as writing and directing for the stage, and has starred alongside Mel Gibson in Braveheart. In 2012, her layered, nuanced play Federer Versus Murray enthralled a packed […] ‘Play With Me’ by Michael Pedersen. Michael Pedersen’s aptly titled Play With Me is full of the writerly joy of playing with words, a delight in their sound and appearance as much as their meaning. Pedersen is drawn time and again to alliteration, assonance, consonance, onomatopoeia, rhymes and half‐rhymes, as if he is making patterns as much as poems; but his […] ‘The Green Dress Whose Girl is Sleeping’ by Russell Jones. Edinburgh-based poet Russell Jones has published three pamphlets and edited Where Rockets Burn: Contemporary Science Fiction Poetry from the UK. The Green Dress Whose Girl Is Sleeping marks his debut book-length collection. The titles of the poems point towards idiosyncrasy and diversity — ‘My Secrets as a God’, ‘My Adoration of Tiramisu’, ‘Random Sample from […] ‘A Clearance’ by Fiona Wilson. If the book’s title and author’s name suggest a connection with Scotland this is entirely appropriate — Wilson grew up in Scotland and from the very first poem (‘Victorian Scotland’), a sense of Scottishness pervades her debut collection. The Scots Magazine, the Caledonian forest, Burns, Stevenson, Trocchi and Troon are all referenced. This is not […] Michael Pedersen & Scott Hutchison on Oyster. Our poetry columnist speaks with Michael Pedersen, co-pilot of Neu! Reekie! and Scott Hutchison of Frightened Rabbit, to get the dirt on their succulent new collaboration of Michael's poetry and Scott's artwork: Oyster. The Skinny: how does Oyster compare to your first collection, Play With Me ? Michael Pedersen: It’s longer; it’s stronger; it’s likely more playful and severe in the one dollop. Most of these poems are appearing for the first time. Unlike with Play with Me where I published pieces in magazines and anthologies as I went, I kept these mostly to myself. Having worked with Gerry Cambridge [Editor of The Dark Horse poetry magazine] editorially and published and read further and fiercer, I’m now more confident in unveiling them in one strident swoop. The love poems remain ubiquitous, the liberalist free thinking attitude towards drugs and shagging balloons up and boogies. I’ve mined deeper with contemporary Scots language pieces and think I’ve upped my pop poetry ante. As of, the sugar paper lilted love pieces with brutal wee endings, well they get soppier and more gnarly still. Play with Me was soupy noodles, this is the full ramen. I noticed a lot of the poems have a very strong, sensual thread… tell me more? MP: Oyster is sensual, sure. I’ve never had a problem with candour – in fact, the opposite. Not in a gossip column kind of way, but to transmit experiences. It’s also a way of showing how new people came into my life. I’m shyer in person, so putting it on the page matters. Not a prescription, just a lusty invitation to wander into your imagination. They say oysters are an aphrodisiac – it's not conclusive. I hope the same goes for these poems and illustrations combined. 'inconclusive aphrodisiacs'. that's the dream (it's more alive than ever). How did your collaboration on Oyster begin? MP: The poems came first, and I knew I wanted Scott to illustrate them. Scott chose poems he felt he could relate to, or fragments he felt he could relate to at one point in time. Scott Hutchison: We’ve known each other for six years and have been aware of each other’s work in every sense. It was a no-brainer for me to accept the offer to illustrate them. Which came first for you, Scott – music or drawing? SH: I'm glad to draw in a more 'official' capacity these days. It's the only job I'm actually qualified to do, having spent four years studying to earn a degree at GSA. It's strange how the two pursuits have intertwined for me, music and visual art. When I was at art school I was fully immersed in what turned out to be a wonderful, eye-opening journey to nowhere (for a while). I felt I was only making work to entertain the brains within the institution and that the wider world, quite rightly, couldn't give a shit about my project discussing the social struggle of chairs. When I found a different mode of expression within my songs it was really freeing. It felt like that was a more real, raw and unprocessed version of me, whereas the art school lad had been trying so hard just to fit in and learn the rules for breaking the rules. The whole thing has flipped now that music is my day job, and I find drawing very therapeutic and mentally liberating in much the same way as songwriting back in college. How did you go about illustrating Oyster – did you plan, or was it mainly instinct? SH: It was a bit of a challenge to distil various pieces of Michael's work into a single image, given that his work flips across the page in a way that is hard to pin down. His poems can easily pull a nutmeg on you, run rings, tap you on the shoulder and then knock you flat out. I tried not to overthink it and the drawings were often a fairly instinctive reaction to what I saw in my head while I was reading through. Some images show what’s in the poem, some are purely interpretative. which means some are simple, plainly obvious and others a little more left-footed. All take a fresh reaction to what I read; I didn’t want them to be absolute. MP: I feel these illustrations are a very special part of Scott that not enough people get to see. It's cherished and champion to have them sit alongside these poems – the poems being special and susurrus parts of my thinking not commonly talked about in the pub or over chips. Dare I ask, what next? MP: The show myself and Scott will create around Oyster is yet to reveal itself. We’re still working on how to do it live, with set boundaries, and it needs to reflect the antithesis of what people expect. It’s not just about an illustrated book – it’s a living organism. The 'me reading for a bit then Scott playing for a bit' structure with a stream of surrounding chatter is a mere starting point. I'm envisioning a potpourri of songs, visuals, voices and performances which can't be categorised as either poem or song or as belonging strictly to either one of us. We take Oyster on tour soon: Edinburgh, Glasgow, Nottingham and London – in my mind the end of this tour is the starting point for something quite remarkable. SH: I hope the live Oyster shows can begin to bring all these pieces of artistic endeavour together in a cohesive (or comprehensibly chaotic) way. Michael is the master of the variety event and I think we'll both relish chucking ideas about in front of willing eyes and ears. It's a thrilling prospect, venturing out under the wing of a great friend and admired collaborator. I'm always much happier playing second or third fiddle, or indeed no fiddle at all. Oyster , published by Polygon, RRP £9.99. The book launches on 1 Sep; the authors share a stage at Neu! Reekie!'s programme at Electric Fields festival on 1 Sep Michael Pedersen and Scott Hutchison also appear at Edinburgh International Book Festival on 18 Aug; Oyster will be available exclusively from the Festival bookshop. Oyster. Sorry, this is currently unavailable. Find out why here. Please click below and we will notify you when it is back in stock. Short Description: Oyster is the second collection from prize-winning Edinburgh poet Michael Pedersen.From Grez-sur-Loing and festive nights to sizzling summers stretched out in the Meadows and. Read more. Product Description & Details Review this book Author Biography. Product Description. Oyster is the second collection from prize-winning Edinburgh poet Michael Pedersen.From Grez-sur-Loing and festive nights to sizzling summers stretched out in the Meadows and Portobello, Michael Pedersen's unique brand of poetry captures a debauchery and a disputation of characters, narrated with an intense honesty and a love of language that is playful, powerful and penetrative; he vividly illuminates scenes with an energy that is both witty, humourous but also deeply intelligent. Oyster is iced, spiced, baked and beaming for your pleasure.Oyster features bespoke illustrations from Frightened Rabbit lead singer and songwriter Scott Hutchison. Oyster Paperback edition by Michael Pedersen. Product Details. Product Specification. Categories. Write a Review. Please sign in to write a review. Author Biography. Michael Pedersen is a prize-winning poet from Edinburgh. He also dabbles in film-scripts, plays and pop songs. Michael has performed all over the world and is the co-founder of micro publisher and record label Neu! Reekie!. Michael has won a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship and The John Mather's Trust Rising Star Award, is a Canongate Future 40, and a Callum McDonald Memorial Award finalist. Scott Hutchison is a Scottish singer, songwriter, guitarist and artist. He is best known as the founding member and primary songwriter of the indie rock band Frightened Rabbit, with whom he has recorded four studio albums. Hutchison is also a member of the musical collective The Fruit Tree Foundation, and has released one solo album, under the moniker Owl John. Hutchison studied illustration at the . Top tips for reviewing. Tell us why you liked or disliked the book; using examples and comparisons is a great way to do this. The ideal length is 100-200 words but you can write anything up to the 1,000 character limit. Suggest similar books that people might want to read if they enjoy the book you're reviewing. Give your honest opinion. We welcome criticism as long as it fits within our 'house rules'. We reserve the right to remove reviews that include distasteful, offensive or promotional content. Click here to see our full list of house rules. By submitting a review you are agreeing to our terms of use. Express Delivery. We offer FREE worldwide delivery on all of our books. But items marked with Express Delivery or are eligible for a choice of other delivery options, including ‘tracked / next day’ delivery (see below). All delivery options are explained at the checkout. Currently we only have one express delivery option: Tracked 24 Hour Service . Next Working Day delivery (Monday-Saturday, excluding public holidays). Order before 2pm UK only. £3.00. ‘Ready To Go’ - What is it? These are essentially books that are in our U.K warehouse, which are ready to be dispatched, pretty swiftly (usually within 1-2 working days!). The dispatch time frame is factored into the delivery estimate you see on this page. Don’t forget every single book on our website is available with free worldwide delivery, no minimum spend required. Sorry, this is currently unavailable. A book might be showing as 'out of stock' for a number of reasons. It could be that it's a really popular title and we're simply waiting for the publisher to print and supply more stock. Sometimes, it may be the case that the book is no longer in publication. However, there are a few other factors that are currently having an impact on product availability. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, many of our suppliers are reporting disruption because of staff shortages and transit limitations. And Brexit related restrictions / freight policy changes are causing further logistical delays. If you'd like us to email you if / when this book is back in stock, please close this window and click the 'Notify Me' button. We use cookies to enhance our site's performance. By continuing to use our website; you're agreeing to our use of cookies and other terms and conditions around data usage. Oyster. The world’s #1 eTextbook reader for students. VitalSource is the leading provider of online textbooks and course materials. More than 15 million users have used our Bookshelf platform over the past year to improve their learning experience and outcomes. With anytime, anywhere access and built-in tools like highlighters, flashcards, and study groups, it’s easy to see why so many students are going digital with Bookshelf. titles available from more than 1,000 publishers. customer reviews with an average rating of 9.5. digital pages viewed over the past 12 months. institutions using Bookshelf across 241 countries. Oyster 1st Edition by Michael Pedersen and Publisher Birlinn Ltd. Save up to 80% by choosing the eTextbook option for ISBN: 9780857903662, 0857903667. The print version of this textbook is ISBN: 9781846973970, 184697397X. Oyster 1st Edition by Michael Pedersen and Publisher Birlinn Ltd. Save up to 80% by choosing the eTextbook option for ISBN: 9780857903662, 0857903667. The print version of this textbook is ISBN: 9781846973970, 184697397X.