Prime - Softcover

In Prime, Miranda Pearson’s 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, Pearson’s 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 poet’s steady gaze.

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.