Review of new Wendy Cope book in LA Review of Books
 

Wow, Mike, that's big deal. You are the King of West Coast. You should move out here.

An excellent review, Mike. (I need to order Wendy's latest immediately!)

Mike Juster on Wendy Cope, linked from Prufrock Blog
 

A. M. Juster writes about the talent and depth of Britain’s most popular poet (https://micahmattix.us9.list-manage....e= 01f1b13d41) : “Despite her obvious talent and Oxford education, Cope had to overcome many obstacles. She was a woman in a literary world dominated by males. She worked as an elementary school teacher, not as a professor or editor. She wrote primarily formal poetry at the highpoint of its disfavor within the academy. Perhaps the greatest obstacle to her literary acceptance was that her poems were humorous at a time when the establishment assumed that light verse had altogether died. Opinion leaders may have given Cope short shrift, but Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis stunned them by selling almost 200,000 copies, an extraordinary number for a British poetry book. Nonetheless, critics only rarely credited Cope for anything other than simply being funny; they passed over her range of styles and subjects, her ideas, her concision, her erudition, her unpredictability, and her mastery of form.”

--Juster on Wendy Cope's Anecdotal Evidence in the L.A. Review of Books

Good review, which makes me want to read the book. It also gave me an idea for a poem, so thanks, Mike.

Susan

Poetry Daily is now headlining this piece of his:

http://poems.com/

A rave review is rarely as intriguing as this~~congratulations, Michael!

I've been reading and re-reading her first and second books recently, and the versatility is phenomenal: the work is subtle, outrageous, positive, negative, self-effacing, proud, understated, laugh-out-loud funny, and touching.

Must order the last one too!

Mike,
Thank you. What a super review; I really enjoyed reading it!

I didn't know that Wendy Cope sometimes suffers from depression. I've met her twice: On the first occasion she was quite rude and grumpy to my daughter and me at an Oldie lunch, and the second time was at a reading she gave; she didn't even thank people for coming, and hadn't the faintest idea how to use a microphone properly, which caused a fair amount of irritation among her audience.

I've tended to view her somewhat negatively based on those experiences... whilst loving her poetry, I hasten to add, but I can afford to be more charitable now, and I feel humbled. Depression is a terrible affliction, and I now realise that she may well have been fighting her demons on those occasions.

I shall buy her new book, though, to add to my collection of her other stuff, and particularly look forward to reading the poems you've referred to. Thanks again, Mike.

Jayne

Thanks for this. Beautifully written book review of a poet who has thus far escaped my weak poetry radar screen. (Wendy surely has thanked you, too, I hope.)
x

Thank you, everyone, for the kind comments.

I have been busier with reviews than I like to be, but have only one more in the hopper right now--an almost finished review of David Ferry's Aeneid translation that should be out in late April.

Thanks again.