Wendy Cope (born 21 July 1945) is a contemporary English poet. Born in Erith, south-east London, she was educated at Farringtons School and went on to read history at St Hilda's College, Oxford. She now lives in Winchester with the poet Lachlan Mackinnon. Three books of her poetry have been published (Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis in 1986, Serious Concerns in 1992 and If I Don't Know in 2001), and she has edited several anthologies of comic verse. She won the Michael Braude Award for Light Verse in 1995, and If I Don't Know (dedicated to Lachlan Mackinnon) was shortlisted for the Whitbread Poetry Award in 2001. Despite her slight output, her books have sold well and she has attracted a popular following with her lighthearted, often comical poetry, as well as achieving literary credibility. She has a keen eye for the everyday, mundane aspects of English life, especially the desires, frustrations, hopes, confusions and emotions in intimate relationships. The bathetic aspect to her work has led to comparisons with Philip Larkin, although her work evidences a genuine warmth and affection for humanity in contrast to his ennui. Some of her poems are written in the persona of a struggling male poet, Jason Strugnell, a slightly seedy figure from Tulse Hill. She displays her talent for parody with targets ranging from the sonnets of Sir Philip Sidney: My true love hath my heart and I have hers We swapped last Tuesday and felt quite elated But now whenever one of us refers To 'my heart' things get rather complicated. to reducing T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land to limericks: In April one seldom feels cheerful; Dry stones, sun and dust make me fearful; Clairvoyants distress me, Commuters depress me— Met Stetson and gave him an earful. She was a judge of the 2007 Man Booker prize.
Continue in Laura Riding »»»
Page 1 of 1