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    Prime
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    Ebook125 pages40 minutes

    Prime

    By Miranda Pearson

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    About this ebook

    In Prime, Miranda Pearsons first collection of poetry, the narratives of female identity, the white wedding, and the enshrined position of the mother are interrogated, using the lyric as a form of cultural critique in an examination and mockery of romantic love and heterosexual relationships. At the same time, the poems constitute an irreverent, lush romp, a celebration of friendship and absurdity.

    Gritty and darkly humorous, Pearsons verses address modern myths head-on in a world where love watches itself critically and consciously. Everything is unravelled in poems that disentangle pregnancy from motherhood, custody from caregiving, marriage from love, sex from gender, only to weave these concepts back together in startling new patterns. Pearson deliberately trips over the picket fences of proprieties and sensitivities that surround the New Age marriage. The sacred and profane are crossed daily with frankness, toughness, and warmth. In Prime, British humour and psychoanalytic and feminist theory meet under the poets steady gaze.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDundurn
    Release dateApr 16, 2001
    ISBN9781770706286
    Prime
    Author

    Miranda Pearson

    Miranda Pearson was born in England and moved to Canada in 1991. She received an M.F.A. in creative writing from the University of British Columbia, where she was poetry editor for Prism international. Pearson has taught creative writing at Simon Fraser University and the University of British Columbia. Her poems have appeared in numerous literary journals, including The Malahat Review, Event, The Fiddlehead, Grain, Arc, and Prairie Fire. She lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.

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      Book preview

      Prime - Miranda Pearson

      Prime

      poems by

      Miranda Pearson

      Porcepic Books

      an imprint of

      Beach Holme Publishing

      Vancouver

      Copyright © 2001 by Miranda Pearson

      First Edition

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from CANCOPY (Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency), Toronto, Ontario.

      This book is published by Beach Holme Publishing, 226–2040 West 12th Avenue, Vancouver, B.C.V6J 2G2. www.beachhobne.bc.ca. This is a Porcepic Book.

      The publisher gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts and of the British Columbia Arts Council. The publisher also acknowledges the financial assistance received from the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) for its publishing activities.

      Editor: Michael Carroll

      Production and Design: Jen Hamilton

      Cover Art: Angela Grossmann, copyright © 2000. Used with the permission of the artist.

      Author Photograph: Christopher Morris

      Printed and bound in Canada by Marc Veilleux Imprimeur

      National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data

      Pearson, Miranda.

      Prime

      Poems.

      A Porcepic book.

      ISBN 0-88878-418-X

      I. Title.

      PS8581.E388P7 2001            C811’.54            C2001-910122-8

      PR9199.3.P373P7 2001

      For Rosemary and Michael Pearson

      Contents

      Acknowledgements

      One

      Falling in Love

      Dinner with Friends on a Midsummer’s Evening

      Off Jericho

      Blended

      Lengths

      Between Your Parents’ Sheets

      Party

      The Shower

      Mat. Leave

      1980

      St. Michael’s, Sask.

      Craven

      June Morning

      The Scarf

      The Measure

      Party, Eight Months

      Settler

      Bird-Heart

      Boys

      Being in the Water

      Hands

      Two

      Night

      Morning

      New Dad

      Man

      Custodians

      La Pietà

      3:00 A.M.

      Whale Birth, Vancouver Aquarium

      Public/Pool

      Therapy

      Checkup

      The Convention

      Daddy’s Home

      Watching The Lion King

      Trucks

      Son

      You

      Protection

      Best Friend

      Christmas

      Dowry

      Break

      Greenham

      Three

      Wreck

      Charmer

      Ativan

      Lice

      Mid-Wife

      Mirror, Mirror

      Graft

      Kiss

      Loose

      When You Leave

      A Shell Box

      Rain, Jericho

      Privet

      The Dress

      Three Years Deep

      In Another Life

      February

      Housework

      Shift

      Eating the Earth

      Acknowledgements

      For their close editorial attention to this book, I would like to thank: Don McKay and the Sage Hill Poetry Colloquium; Mark Cochrane, Esta Spalding, and Roo Borson; George McWhirter and the University of British Columbia M.F.A. Advanced Poetry Workshop.

      And for their suggestions and encouragement, thanks go to Patrick Lane, Di Brandt, Marilyn Dumont, Kate Braid, Denise Ryan, Monica Franz, Shawna Fowler, Souix Browning, Tanis Macdonald, Katherine Kerr, John Barton, Steven Herrick, Richard Harrison, Kathleen Jamie, Joy Gugeler, Patricia Young, Julie Bruck, Janice Kulyk-Keefer, and Rhonda Batchelor at Reference West.

      Sincere gratitude is also extended to Tracey Dobney and all at Vista; to Gillian Cornford, Carola Ackery, Mark Harris, and Andrew Currie; and to Adam Pearson-urrie.

      Many thanks to Angela Grossmann for the cover art; to Christopher Morris for the author photo; and to Michael Carroll, Jen Hamilton, and Trisha Telep at Beach Holme.

      Earlier versions of several of these poems were first published in the following literary journals: The Antigonish Review, Arc, Canadian Literature, Event, The Fiddlehead, Grain, The Malahat Review, Matrix, Prairie Fire, Prism international, TADs 6, and Wascana Review. My thanks to the editors.

      Poems from this book also appear in the limited-edition chapbook After the Body (Reference West, 1996). The Measure, Off Jericho, and Greenham are in the anthology At the Edges of Time (Seraphim, 2000, ed. Maureen

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