Sorry if I’m flogging a dead horse here, but I wanted to say a bit about the Wendy Cope poem. I won’t do a thorough textual analysis, partly because it doesn’t seem necessary for such a simple poem and partly because I’m not very good at it, but I wanted to share what I think makes it work.
Cope is often praised for her humanity, whatever that means. I don’t know if this poem is strictly autobiographical, but it gives us a portrait of a very real man and a very real relationship. She’s not portraying an ideal hero, and she’s not saying ‘Bloody men!’ She’s relating the foibles with a wry sense of humour and a lot of warm affection.
I wouldn’t argue that accessible poetry like this is objectively superior to ‘deep’ work, but I do take issue when people argue the converse. I think it bugs me partly because of the resonance with arguments in literary fiction, where ‘women’s literature’ is often sneered at. Like light verse, it is often concerned with personal relationships and the psyche, and these are seen by the establishment as less worthy topics than metaphysics or battles or whatever men write about.
Clearly there isn’t a firm gender divide in poetry – plenty of men write light verse and plenty of women write heavy. But I think value judgements about poetry have the danger of being clouded by these issues.
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