The Cat Prince: & Other Poems

WINNER of the 2023 Books Are My Bag Readers Award for Best Poetry Collection

''Pedersen bends words like no-one else. There''s a naughtiness, an innocence and surprising vulnerability in this collection. It''s poetry to intoxicate. Just sublime.'' Juno Dawson

''Every page of The Cat Prince brought me gladsome joy. Pedersen has the astonishing power of finding the astonishing in every moment that deserves a raised glass'' Daljit Nagra

''This laser focused collection of poetry by Michael Pedersen will gut you like a fish and smash your heart in. Searingly specific, exquisite and requisite. I relished reading every tiny morsel of it'' Shirley Manson

''Open-hearted, gut-wrenching and yet elegiac, these poems pack a hefty emotional punch. Michael Pederson''s poems display a huge vocabulary for love, love in all its many forms and guises. These poems chart the journey from boyhood to manhood, the highs and the lows, the losses and the gains, always working their way towards an essential, emotional truth'' Jackie Kay

''If the alphabet is a piano keyboard then Michael Pedersen plays it with the confidence and panache of a jazz improviser who knows that every note can have the potential to change someone''s life. Be amazed by this book'' Ian McMillan

''Michael''s poems are so physical you can almost touch the images in them. Fabulously sensual and alive. I adore poetry like this'' Stephen Fry

The Cat Prince & Other Poems is the third collection from prize-winning poet, and author of Boy Friends, Michael Pedersen.

All moggy moxie, Pedersen croons to the beauty and devastation of love, loss, friendship, cats and careless joy. Equal parts tender and trenchant, raw and ribald, plangent and smutty, these poems exhibit an emotionally charged, fantastical playground of language and lore.

From the brutalising death of a cherished friend comes a gut-wrenching grief. And so begins a tenacious quest for light, lustre and survival as Pedersen pays tender tribute to a gorgeous, life-altering friendship. In doing so, he harks back to the hilarity of being young, reckless and petrified: memories of boys showboating in a fishing tackle shop, games of feline metamorphosis, laments for demolished buildings and a case of constipation of the most pernicious stock.

As frisky as it is fierce, The Cat Prince pounces around the poet''s emotional and physical landscapes, past and present, unfankling a Scotland full of gothic splendour and nature''s majesty.

These poems reveal a poet at his bravest and most vulnerable. The Cat Prince & Other Poems purrs with affection, flashes its teeth, then digs in the claws.