British, born in Manchester in 1971.

To a Certain Person

If one day I should find myself in pain,
In a predicament or in distress,
There's something you can do for me: refrain
From digging out my number and address.

Don't send your sympathy or kind regards.
Don't send your cash (as if you ever would),
Nor are your presents, telegrams and cards
Evidence that you wish me all things good.

You will profess to want to help. Then do--
A burst of honesty might make me smile.
Tell me that you believe I'm overdue
This, if not even more severe a trial.

Indulge yourself: applaud, rejoice, enthuse
And maybe soon I'll have some more bad news.

from First of the Last Chances

Rondeau Redoublé

I know the rules and hear myself agree
Not to invest beyond this one night stand.
I know your patter: in, out, like the sea.
The sharp north wind must blow away the sand.

Soon my supply will meet your last demand
And you will have no further use for me.
I will not swim against the tide, to land.
I know the rules. I hear myself agree.

I've kept a stash of hours, just two or three
To smuggle off your coast like contraband.
We will both manage (you more easily)
Not to invest beyond this one night stand.

To narrow-minded friends I will expand
On cheap not being the same as duty free.
I'll say this was exactly what I planned.
I know your pattern: in, out, like the sea.

It's not as if we were designed to be
Strolling along the beach front, hand in hand.
Things change, of natural necessity.
The sharp north wind must blow away the sand

And every storm to rage, however grand,
Will end in pain and shipwreck and debris
And each time there's a voice I have to strand
On a bare rock, hardened against its plea;
I know the rules.

Sophie Hannah

Terrific. Thanks for introducing me to her work.

Susan

Another one by Sophie Hannah - slighter perhaps but fun; from her first collection, The Hero and the Girl Next Door (1995):

Trainers All Turn Grey
(after Robert Frost's "Nothing Gold Can Stay")

You buy your trainers new.
They cost a bob or two.
At first they're clean and white,
The laces thick and tight.
Then they must touch the ground -
(You have to walk around).
You learn to your dismay
Trainers all turn grey.

I think Certain Person is pretty mundane.
The Rondeau's a cracker though.
Best regards,
David

Sam,
While I smile at her dry cynicism I confess I find her voice unremarkable. I also dislike her capitalised lines which seem like an affectation when combined with rather unleavened language.
Janet

"To a Certain Person" reminds me of a masterpiece written and performed (alas) before this young author was born, Dylan's "Positively Fourth Street." One thing I like here is the little pattern of end stops and enjambments she creates for herself within the larger constraints: the third line of each quatrain runs over into the fourth, while all the others have some degree of end stop.
RPW

I find the (almost) relentless iambic pulse here as dull and mechanical as the doof doof thump of hip-hop.



------------------
Mark Allinson

"To a Certain Person" strikes me as a nice, original twist on the curse-poem genre--turning in L9 from outright curse to a petition for self-actualizing honesty! The ending may be read as an ambiguous toss-up between the two. Musically, it's proficient but I'm not overwhelmed. Thanks for posting it. Manchester poets are interesting in general--my favorite being John Ash.

John

I picked up the "Next Generation" pamphlet recently. Hannah's one of 20 tips for the top. After reading a poem or 2 of hers you know what the rest of the book's going to be like so browse before you buy. Long ago I thought that When Wendy Cope does the same kind of stuff she does it better, and does other things besides. Connie Bensley ("Choosing to be a Swan") is funnier. Even newcomers like Eleanor Brown ("Maiden Speech") are better in places. So why, even allowing for the usual hype, did Poetry Review call Hannah "A GENIUS"? ...A wider range of subject matter, a smaller selection of poems and some sharper lines would all have helped to improve the book.
Seeing the 20 blurbs in the pamphlet one after the other was too much for me.

• "It is difficult to pin down Nick Drake's poetry, which makes his book... all the more pleasurable to read"
• "There's rarely any doubt about what Sophie Hannah means in any of her poems. She is a communicator..."
• "... poems that remind us why memory is such an important human faculty"
• "Many of the poems are deceptively short"

etc.

The trainer take-off is terrific. Not really wowed by the other two, which seem at first read rather Cope-esque without Cope's fluidity or verve. (Line 12, for instance, of the Certain Person sonnet tripped me up a bit in sound and sense.) I'm very willing to be won over though, so would happily look at some more poems, or hear more appreciations.

In general, actually, I find that UK poets employ form with more energy and naturalness than the more self-consciously "formalist" poets in the US.

(By the way, I have no problem with the capitalized lines, since I do that myself. I see it as no more affected than writing in lines as opposed to paragraphs--hey, this is a poem, after all! And partly it's a generational thing, I think. I've noticed folks writing in form around my age have a tendency to cap. I understand where you are coming from, though, Janet--we can agree to disagree on this one.)