[Alan Sullivan]

Awhile back, Mike Juster posted a poem written in the style of Wendy Cope. At the time I wondered how many visitors to the Metrical Board were familiar with her work. I have decided to post several of her short, quirky poems here in the hope of encouraging others to read her. Ms. Cope has a very distinctive voice, and she works the boundary of form in a most appealing way.

On this site and elsewhere I encounter people arguing for what some call "relaxed form." I wish all the practitioners were as persuasive as Cope. Often "relaxed form" seems like a substitute for the hard work needed to formulate and express a theme. Strict form is valuable to many poets because it slows them down and compels them to think through their ideas. Wendy Cope has the discipline to think deeply and write compellingly without adopting a doctrinaire formalist approach.

Cope's two collections have sold stupendously in Great Britain, but she remains little known in the U.S., though the West Chester Conference was privileged to host her as keynote speaker two years ago. There she enjoyed unanimous acclaim for her satires of free verse, wry love-poems, and witty send-ups of self-absorbed men.

Tumps

Don't ask him the time of day. He won't know it,
For he's the abstracted sort.
In fact he's a typically useless male poet.
We'll call him a tump for short.

A tump isn't punctual or smart or efficient,
He probably can't drive a car
Or follow a map, though he's very proficient
At finding his way to the bar.

He may have great talent, and not just for writing---
For drawing or playing the drums.
But don't let him loose on accounts---that's inviting
Disaster. A tump can't do sums.

He cannot get organized. Just watch him try it,
And you'll see a frustrated man.
But some tumps (and these are the worst ones) deny it
And angrily tell you they can.

I used to be close to a tump who would bellow
'You think I can't add two and two!'
And get even crosser when, smiling and mellow,
I answered, 'You're quite right. I do.'

Women poets are businesslike, able,
Good drivers and right on the ball,
And some of us still know our seven times table.
We're not like the tumps. Not at all.

Both of Cope's books feature poems by her alter-ego "tump," Jason Strugnell, a clueless academic who churns out free and formal verse, desperately seeking some recognition for something, anything. But many of my favorite Cope poems are short and pithy reflections on the difficulties of love.

I Worry

I worry about you---
So long since we spoke.
Love are you downhearted,
Dispirited, broke?

I worry about you.
I can't sleep at night.
Are you sad? Are you lonely?
Or are you all right?

They say that men suffer
As badly, as long.
I worry, I worry,
In case they are wrong.

Then there is the literary satire. It wasn't apparent, until Ms. Cope proved otherwise, that the world sorely needed a condensation of "The Waste Land" into five limericks. She also makes merry with Shakespeare, sometimes through the assistance of Strugnell, who is partial to sonnets.

The expense of spirits is a crying shame,
So is the cost of wine. What bard today
Can live like old Khayyam? It's not the same---
A loaf and thou and Tesco's Beaujolais.
I had this bird called Sharon, fond of gin---
Could knock back six or seven. At the price
I paid a high wage for each hour of sin
And that was why I only had her twice.
Then there was Tracy, who drank rum and coke,
So beautiful I didn't mind at first.
But love grows colder. Now some other bloke
Is subsidizing Tracy and her thirst.
I need a woman, honest and sincere,
Who'll come across on half a pint of beer.

The two books are titled "Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis" and "Serious Concerns." Both are published by Faber and Faber.

[Richard Wakefield]

These are all splendid, but I'm partial to "The expense of spirits" for the way it plays on contemporary meanings of Shakespeare's diction. "Expense of spirit in a waste of shame," which seems clear enough once one gets the words in the original context, is a real stumper when one is constrained by our more familiar uses (just "use," as in "Sweet are the uses of adversity"!). To me, Cope's sonnet comments on the flattening of language in general, poetry in particular. I have strong reservations about the idea that culture, whatever that is, has been on the decline since [fill in your preferred era here], but it sure can feel that way when I hear the awful contortions poems are put through as naive readers try to preserve their limited sphere of reference. Even a poem hundreds of years more recent, Hardy's "The Ruined Maid," gets wrecked when a reader knows only that "maid" means a woman hired to serve in a rich man's house. At the same time, Cope's poem reminds us that while we're all being so pompous our spirits, as it were, are working on another, earthier level. It's funny, and all the funnier for being true in a couple of striking ways.
Richard

[Caleb Murdock]

These three poems -- aside from one which I think was posted here earlier -- represent my only exposure to Wendy Cope, and they leave me pretty cold. They are almost too plain-spoken, lacking many of the elements that I love about poetry. They don't create a mood. They aren't profound. They don't use language in interesting ways. They don't contain unusual or interesting rhythms. They don't convey their messages with anything resembling subtlety. They don't evoke much emotion. Even the one love poem -- "I worry" -- is pretty perfunctory.

Robert Frost used to talk about the importance of bringing the sounds of regular speech into poetry, but he nonetheless managed to retain those elements which set poetry apart from speech. This poetry sacrifices those elements. Everything but rhyme and a very regular meter are missing. No metaphor, no alliteration, no parallellism. No mystery! It just "says what it says".

If these poems are representative of her work, I am very disappointed.

------------------
Caleb
www.poemtree.com

[Alan Sullivan]

Language changes with time, not necessarily for the worse, though Ciceros are always crying O tempora! O mores! Imagine what future parodists might do with the lingo of our day.

Caleb, I'm particularly surprised that you accuse Ms. Cope of "a very regular meter." That's true only of the third piece I posted, which is, after all, a Shakespearean parody. But the first two are written in precisely the sort of relaxed lope I would expect you to appreciate.

Since when is "mystery" a prerequisite for good poetry? While you might argue that this trait, whatever it is, presents itself with disproportionate frequency in poetry of the first rank, it is not sine qua non.

Alan Sullivan

[Tim Murphy]

I've had the great good fortune of hearing Wendy's reading at West Chester, followed by the great misfortune of having to succeed her at the podium at Colorado College. The only worse fate I could imagine would be following R.S. Gwynn. I am mad about Cope. I have more of her lines by heart than any other of my contemporaries. I am no satirist, no poet of manners, and in fact I try to write with the rich musicality that my friend Caleb so much admires. But I in turn admire those poetic endeavors of which I am incapable. Wendy is just flat out one of the five best poets writing in the English language, and I hope the denizens of the Eratosphere will buy her books and study her. Those who are as delighted as I will further profit by acquiring Sam Gwynn's No Word of Farewell, New and Selected. Story Line published it this week, and it can be ordered from them on line. Was it Eliot or Dr. Johnson who said "that rarest man of genius, the true satirist?"

--Tim Murphy

[Caleb Murdock]

Alan, I didn't scan these poems before I commented on them, so I guess I need to amend my remarks.

I don't hear a relaxed lope in them. Rather, I hear the kind of quick beat that you get in light verse. Irregularities or not, I don't think she has done anything particularly interesting with the rhythms -- not like Hopkins or Auden did in their poems. But then, you don't always hear what I hear, especially in Hopkins.

(Incidentally, it has never been my desire to write in a relaxed lope -- I love strong rhythms; I just like those rhythms to be unusual and a little wild, like jazz improvisations.)

These poems by Cope run straight into one of my biases. I am little interested in poetry which doesn't have some gravity or dignity, and these particular poems seem to have little of that. Perhaps if you posted one of Cope's more serious or melancholy poems, I would relate to it better.

I find myself somewhat befuddled by the poets that you fellows choose to love. Cope is like Hardy in that they both lack a certain amount of artistry -- yes, artistry! Many (certainly not all) of Hardy's poems were slapped together from straightforward colloquial language, and as such they have a pedestrian sound. Judging from these poems by Cope, she seems to work in a similar way. Personally, I find more artistry in your own work.

Alan, the mystery in poetry is the depth of meaning which is written between the lines. For example, in Tim's poems about farming, I hear not just his own struggle but the struggles of farmers throughout the ages. His poetry resonates beyond his own experience, as do many of yours.

Caleb

[This message has been edited by Caleb Murdock (edited January 14, 2001).]

[Alan Sullivan]

You struck me speechless for a bit, Caleb, with those generous comments. But I think you may be confusing sonority with artistry.

I was careless with my comment on metrical lope. I should have remembered your partiality to Hopkins. You like to pack in the stresses.

Though no practitioner of the plain style, I appreciate Cope's mastery of it. And I don't think it would be nearly as easy as she makes it look. Therein lies her art.

Alan Sullivan

[Julie]

Tumps is pleasant light verse, but doesn't inspire me.

I worry is very fun.

But the sonnet, oh the sonnet. If you hadn't posted that I would have dismissed her. Smashing.

Julie

[Caleb Murdock]

I agree that the sonnet is the best and most interesting of the three.

[Michael Juster]

Caleb: Keep an open mind until you see a broader sample--none of my favorites are here. If you like satire, there is nothing better in the past fifty years than her condensation of The Waste Land into four (five?) limericks. I also love the villanelle of a domestic incident done in "Dick and Jane" language. As Alan was suggesting, too, the charms of a plainer style take a little time to appreciate. I just think she's a treat for anyone who loves poetry.