Serious Concerns

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Wendy Cope is one of the most acclaimed living comic poets writing in English. Since her first collection appeared in 1986, she has published a handful of popular volumes of comic verse, though she can also write ‘straight’ poetry very successfully too (as the last poem in this list testifies). Below are ten of Wendy Cope’s finest poems. The poems here reflect her increasing celebrity, with a few responding directly to critics. After a review in the Spectator commented – with magisterial condescension – that she writes primarily ‘to amuse’, Cope tossed off this:

Serious Concerns by Wendy Cope | Waterstones

Five collections of her adult poetry have been published, Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis in 1986, Serious Concerns in 1992, If I Don't Know in 2001, Family Values in 2011, and Anecdotal Evidence in 2018. She has also edited several anthologies of comic verse and was a judge of the 2007 Man Booker Prize. [ citation needed] Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2012-09-25 17:08:11 Bookplateleaf 0002 Boxid IA1124906 Camera Canon EOS 5D Mark II City London [u.a.] Donor Wendy Cope writes quite simple poetry, and I happen to enjoy a simplistic approach to a poem every now and then (I even enjoy the occasional Rupi Kaur). I think this collection shows the two sides of this kind of style: on one hand, poems like the iconic „The Orange“ really show how effective a simple poem utilizing casual language evocatively can be, and that short, funny ones like „Loss“ that almost read more like jokes than poems, work great as interludes. The author of this article, Dr Oliver Tearle, is a literary critic and lecturer in English at Loughborough University. He is the author of, among others, The Secret Library: A Book-Lovers’ Journey Through Curiosities of History and The Great War, The Waste Land and the Modernist Long Poem.The United Kingdom's international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities. Just, why? She was in her 40s when this was published but this feels like a dumb prank a high school student would pull. Maybe I'm a party pooper, but this attitude didn't work for me. Mr Strugnell’ is a particularly fine example of Cope’s ability to capture the style of another poet: here, she takes on Philip Larkin’s ‘Mr Bleaney’ while filtering that poem through the personality of the hapless Strugnell. Strugnell, it probably doesn’t need saying, is no Larkin – but he may well be a latter-day Bleaney …

Wendy Cope - Literature - British Council Wendy Cope - Literature - British Council

In an interview with Thomas Sutcliffe, the point is raised how the levity in Cope’s work has been questioned by other poets too, and she explains that this ‘battering’ is one reason why there is a gap of nine years between her second and third collection ( The Independent, 7 June 2001).Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis’ is the only poem in the third and final section. It takes up just four lines and captures the irreverent but familiar mood of the collection: urn:lcp:seriousconcerns00cope:epub:30ba03d2-dbca-44fd-af95-47188b74c3cd Extramarc Duke University Libraries Foldoutcount 0 Identifier seriousconcerns00cope Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t21c4sx2j Invoice 11 Isbn 9780571167050 Cope’s rueful wisdom connects her to the tradition of Betjeman and Larkin, but she brings a fresh female perspective to bear on social and literary foibles. She has said of her parodies that they were a way “of coming to terms with what was fashionable in poetry” and in their unerring accuracy and mastery of form she showed she could match any of her male contemporaries. Men in general are often the target of her barbed wit, none more so than Strugnell, the hapless and rather unpleasant male poet she invented for her first collection. Long before Bridget Jones sipped her first Chardonnay, Cope was casting a satirical eye over the minefield of contemporary sexual politics: “Bloody men are like bloody buses/You wait for about a year/And as soon as one approaches your stop/Two or three others appear.” Whilst Cope has little time for bleeding hearts, her poems can be poignant as well as humorous. A new mood of contentment infuses her most recent collection with poems of domestic celebration like ‘Being Boring’ or the unabashed tenderness of ‘On a Train’: “Long, radiant minutes,/your hand in my hand.”

Serious Concerns (Faber 90th Anniversary Edition) | Faber

In 1998 she was the BBC Radio 4 listeners' choice to succeed Ted Hughes as Poet Laureate and when Andrew Motion's term of office ended in 2009 she was once again considered as a replacement. Her first published work 'Across the City' was in a limited edition, published by the Priapus Press in 1980 and her first commercial book of poetry was 'Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis' in 1986. Since then she has published two further books of poetry and has edited various anthologies of comic verse. In 1998, she was voted the listeners' choice in a BBC Radio 4 poll to succeed Ted Hughes as Poet Laureate. [3] When Andrew Motion's term as Poet Laureate came to an end in 2009, Cope was again widely considered a popular candidate, [3] although she believes the post should be discontinued. [3] [4] Carol Ann Duffy succeeded Motion as Poet Laureate.The tone, however, is light-hearted, and the character of the subject, her warmth and friendliness, comes over vividly to the reader. The poet conveys affection for her subject, whether Eliza/Nanna is fictional or autobiographical.

Best Wendy Cope Poems Everyone Should Read 10 of the Best Wendy Cope Poems Everyone Should Read

One of the funniest recurring aspects of Wendy Cope’s early poetry is her parodies (or burlesques, to use a perhaps more apt term) of various canonical works of poetry. Use italics (lyric) and bold (lyric) to distinguish between different vocalists in the same song part Also falling into this category is one of her most anthologised poems, the short and awesome ‘Two Cures for Love’, which runs in its entirety:The eponymous poem of her second collection, Serious Concerns, takes on the critics (specifically Robert O’Brien in this instance) who have regarded her humour as ‘both her strength and her limitation’, and questions this reasoning: According to multiple sources, Cope's favorite publication is Anecdotal Evidence and one of her favorite poems is Flowers from Serious Concerns, which is also one of her most famous. [ citation needed] Bibliography [ edit ] Cope's poetry for adults [ edit ] His chief desire was to express himself and his own truth – and therefore life and humanity.” – Walter de la Mare on Edward Thomas We publish a Literature Newsletter when we have news and features on UK and international literature, plus opportunities for the industry to share.