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.
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