Well, Tim, I agree that Sophie H has been overpraised (hardly her fault), that her work is very uneven and that her style and content range are (as in the piece I've posted below) similar to Cope's. However, I'm not sure that the latter makes so much use of complex syntax. Moreover, Hannah's experience of childbirth has opened up new thematic territory. (Cope is - to the best of my knowledge - childless.) Shall hope to post an example at a later date.
This is one that has stuck in my memory since a first reading in Poetry Review, Autumn 1998.
IN WOKINGHAM ON BOXING DAY AT THE EDINBURGH WOOLLEN MILL
Two earnest customers compare
a ribbed and unribbed sleeve.
I wonder what I'm doing here
and think I ought to leave,
get in my car and drive away.
I stand beside the till
in Wokingham on Boxing Day
at The Edinburgh Woollen Mill.
All of the other shops are closed.
Most people are in bed.
Somehow I know that I'm supposed
to find an A-Z.
Somehow I sense I must obey
an unfamiliar will
in Wokingham on Boxing Day
at The Edinburgh Woollen Mill,
somewhere perhaps you've never been.
I doubt you're into wool.
Even if mohair's not your scene
the atmosphere is full
of your proximity. I sway
and feel a little ill
in Wokingham on Boxing Day
at The Edinburgh Wollen Mill.
The sales assistants wish me luck
and say they hope I find
the place I want. I have been stuck
with what I left behind,
with what I've been too scared to say,
too scared to say until
in Wokingham on Boxing Day
at The Edinburgh Wollen Mill
I tell myself the time is now;
willingly I confess
my love for you to some poor cow
in an angora dress
whose get-lost-loony eyes convey
her interest, which is nil,
in Wokingham on Boxing Day
at The Edinburgh Woollen Mill.
I find your house. You're still in bed.
I leave my gift and flee,
pleased with myself, not having said
how you can contact me,
driven by fears I can't allay,
dreams I did not fulfil
in Wokingham on Boxing Day
at The Edinburgh Woollen Mill.
Chains are the most distressing shops.
They crop up everywhere.
The point at which the likeness stops
squeezes my lungs of air.
When I see jumpers on display
I wish that I was still
in Wokingham on Boxing Day
at The Edinburgh Woollen Mill.
NOTE Boxing Day= 26 December.
Margaret.
The last three lines of each stanza were indented in the original. SORRY!
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