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Wendy Cope

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Wendy Cope

OBE
Born(1945-07-21)21 July 1945(age 79)
Erith,Kent,England[1]
OccupationPoet
NationalityBritish
EducationWest Lodge Preparatory School,Sidcup,Kent
Farrington's School,Chislehurst,Kent
Alma materSt Hilda's College, Oxford
Period1980–present
Notable worksMaking Cocoa for Kingsley Amis
Serious Concerns
Notable awardsCholmondeley Award
1987
American Academy of Arts and Letters
1995
Michael Braude Award for Light Verse
1995
SpouseLachlan Mackinnon

Wendy CopeOBE(born 21 July 1945) is a contemporary English poet. She read history atSt Hilda's College, Oxford.She now lives inEly,Cambridgeshire,with her husband, the poetLachlan Mackinnon.

Biography

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Cope was born inErithinKent(now in theLondon Borough of Bexley), where her father Fred Cope was manager of the local department store, Hedley Mitchell. She was educated at West Lodge Preparatory School inSidcupand Farrington's School,Chislehurst,both in Kent.[1]After graduating fromSt Hilda's CollegeandWestminster College, Oxford,Cope spent fourteen years as a primary-school teacher.[2]In 1981, she became Arts and Reviews editor for theInner London Education Authoritymagazine,Contact.Five years later she became a freelance writer and was a television critic forThe Spectatormagazine until 1990.[3]

Five collections of her adult poetry have been published,Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amisin 1986,Serious Concernsin 1992,If I Don't Knowin 2001,Family Valuesin 2011, andAnecdotal Evidencein 2018. She has also edited several anthologies of comic verse and was a judge of the 2007Man Booker Prize.[4]

In 1998, she was voted the listeners' choice in aBBC Radio 4poll to succeedTed HughesasPoet Laureate.[5]WhenAndrew Motion's term as Poet Laureate came to an end in 2009, Cope was again widely considered a popular candidate,[5]although she believes the post should be discontinued.[5][6]Carol Ann Duffysucceeded Motion as Poet Laureate.

Cope was appointedOfficer of the Order of the British Empire(OBE) in the2010 Birthday Honours.[7]In April 2011, theBritish Librarypurchased Cope's archive including manuscripts, school reports and 40,000 emails, the largest email archive they have bought to date. The papers also includes 67 poetry notebooks and unpublished poems. Cope commented "I wanted to find a good home for my archive. The timing was dictated because we had to move home, so we needed some money to buy a house, and the space. So this was the moment. I askedAndrew Motionwhat I should do, and he told me someone to approach at the British Library. I wasn't sure they would want it, but they did. "When the collection is catalogued and organised, the archive will be available to researchers.[8]

In 2013, after 19 years of living together, Cope married Lachlan Mackinnon in a register office, although she has stated that she would have preferred acivil partnership.[9]

In January 2019 she was the guest on BBC Radio 4's long-running programmeDesert Island Discs.Her book choice wasThe Compleet MolesworthbyGeoffrey Willans,her luxury item was writing materials and her favourite track wasBach's"Concerto for Two Violins and Strings in D minor".[10]

Critical reception

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Despite her slight output, her books have sold well and she has attracted a popular following with her lighthearted, often comical poetry, as well as achieving literary credibility winning two awards and making an award shortlist over a fourteen-year period.[11]She has a keen eye for the everyday, mundane aspects of English life, especially the desires, frustrations, hopes, confusions and emotions in intimate relationships.[11]DrRowan Williamsis a well known fan of her work, writing that: "Wendy Cope is without doubt the wittiest of contemporary English poets, and says a lot of extremely serious things".[12]In 2021, the poet and criticRory Watermanpublished the first critical book on her work, for the Writers and Their Work series.[13]

ThreehaikusfromMaking Cocoa for Kingsley Amis,where they are presented as being written by the (fictional)Tulse Hillpoet Jason Strugnell, were set by the composerColin Matthewsin 1990 asStrugnell's Haiku.[14]

In 2008 Cope's poem "After The Lunch" was used as the lyric of the song "Waterloo Bridge" by jazz composer and musicianJools Hollandand singer Louise Marshall.[15]

Progression of style

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Wendy Cope's style progression spans nearly fifty years. While she has released over two dozen publications, her most well-known works are her five intermittent poetry collections:Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis(1986),Serious Concerns(1992),If I Don’t Know(2001),Family Values(2011), andAnecdotal Evidence(2018). The changes in her both her writing style and life can be tracked in these five collections.[citation needed]

Cope acknowledges that the first two are quite different from the latter three. She claims this is due to the major role played by her happiness in her writing, and that her first two collections were written when she was fairly unhappy. Both collections' poems vary in content, but are similar in structure. Generally, each poem features a lighthearted tone with punchline jokes and a dry, compressed wit. The punchline is often "centered on men from the point of view of the single heterosexual woman".[16]Paired with an admiration for life and the mundane, the collections garnered Cope popularity. Cope's style and humor became so consistent that both fans and critics alike began to label pieces written in this style as "Wendy Cope poems" - anthems for "several generations of frustrated and conflicted women".[17]This style was admired for neat rhyme schemes, humorous observations, and unexpected politically charged strikes at concepts like marriage or the patriarchy.

The following three publications are notably darker. They have also been less popular. The wild success ofSerious Concernsin the 1990s changed Cope's life entirely. Newfound money and resources allowed her to quit teaching, dedicate herself to writing, and begin living with Mackinnon, whom she later married in 2013. As her happiness increased, her poetry changed. Free verse poems with darker tones replaced light-hearted rhyme. Cope's allusions to her battles with depression, a theme present in all of her work, grew more frequent.[17]The freedom of success allowed Cope to focus on more thorny issues.

Serious Concernsstands as Cope's most popular book, even thirty years later. One top-ten list of 'must read' Cope poems has all top five poems as coming from her first two collections.[18]However, Cope herself disagrees with the concept of a "Wendy Cope anthem".[17]Cope's favourite of her own works isAnecdotal Evidence.Her favourite of her own poems is 'Flowers' fromSerious Concerns.

Her domestic love poem 'The Orange' became increasingly viral from 2018, leading toFaber & Faberreleasing a line of accompanying merchandise for it, and publishing a new edition of her works in 2023, entitledThe Orange and other poems.

Bibliography

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Cope's poetry for adults

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  • (1986)Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis(Faber and Faber)
  • (1992)Serious Concerns(Faber and Faber)
  • (2001)If I Don't Know(Faber and Faber)
  • (2011)Family Values(Faber and Faber)
  • (2018)Anecdotal Evidence(Faber and Faber)
  • (2023)The Orange and other poems(Faber and Faber)

Collections of Cope's poetry for children

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  • (1988)Twiddling Your Thumbs(Faber and Faber)
  • (1991)The River Girl(Faber and Faber)

Limited editions and selections

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  • (1980)Across the City[limited edition] (Priapus Press)
  • (1982) Poetry Introduction 5 (Faber and Faber)
  • (1984)Hope and the 42(Other Branch Readings)
  • (1986)Poem from a Colour Chart of House Paints[limited edition] (Priapus Press)
  • (1988)Does She Like Word Games?(Anvil Press Poetry)
  • (1988)Men and Their Boring Arguments(Wykeham)
  • (1994)The Squirrel and the Crow'(Prospero Poets)
  • (1998)Being Boring[limited edition 180 copies] ( Arialia Press)
  • (2008)Two Cures for Love: Selected Poems 1979–2006(Faber and Faber)
  • (2016)A Triumphant YesCelandine Press 150 copies signed by the author

Other publications

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  • (1982)Poetry Introduction 5(Faber and Faber)
  • (1989)Is That the New Moon?[editor] (HarperCollins)
  • (1993)The Orchard Book of Funny Poems[editor] (Orchard)
  • (1996)Casting a Spell[contributor] (Faber and Faber)
  • (1998)The Funny Side: 101 Humorous Poems[editor] (Faber and Faber)
  • (1999)The Faber Book of Bedtime Stories[editor] (Faber and Faber)
  • (2000)The Orchard Book of Funny Poems[editor] (Orchard)
  • (2001)Heaven on Earth: 101 Happy Poems[editor] (Faber and Faber)
  • (2002)Is That The New Moon?: Poems by Women Poets[selector] (Collins)
  • (2003)George Herbert: Verse and Prose[selector and introduction] (SPCK)
  • (2014)Life, Love and The Archers: recollections, reviews and other prose(Hodder & Stoughton)

References

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  1. ^abLewis, Helen (3 December 2011)."Wendy Cope interview:" I can't die until I've sorted out the filing cabinets "".New Statesman.Retrieved23 November2016.
  2. ^"Laughter in the dark".The Guardian.26 May 2001.Retrieved1 August2023.
  3. ^"Wendy Cope".British Council.Retrieved9 March2024.
  4. ^"Wendy Cope OBE is a contemporary English poet".Booker Prize Foundation.Retrieved9 March2024.
  5. ^abc"The Guardian"Wendy Cope: I don't want to be laureate" 2 June 2008 ".TheGuardian.Retrieved27 January2019.
  6. ^University Challenge – Jesus, Oxford vs Warwick. Part 2 of 3.onYouTube
  7. ^"No. 59446".The London Gazette(Supplement). 12 June 2010. p. 9.
  8. ^The Guardian"Wendy Cope's archive sold to British Library"20 April 2011
  9. ^"Wendy Cope: 'We like being married but we should have had a choice'".The Guardian.14 February 2014.Retrieved16 February2017.
  10. ^"BBC Radio 4 - Desert Island Discs, Wendy Cope, poet".BBC.Retrieved27 January2019.
  11. ^ab"Wendy Cope - poetryarchive.org".poetryarchive.org.Retrieved27 January2019.
  12. ^"poetryarchive.org"[permanent dead link]A Tour of the Archive with Dr Rowan Williams
  13. ^[1]
  14. ^Matthews, Colin (1990).Strugnell's Haiku.London: Faber Music.ISBN9780571511730
  15. ^Carey, Russell; Fairhill, Anne; Rank, Tom (12 November 2015).A/AS Level English Literature A for AQA Student Book.Cambridge University Press.p. 98.ISBN978-110-7467-92-7.
  16. ^"Wendy Cope - Literature".literature.britishcouncil.org.Retrieved30 November2022.
  17. ^abc"Los Angeles Review of Books".Los Angeles Review of Books.27 February 2018.Retrieved17 November2022.
  18. ^"10 of the Best Wendy Cope Poems Everyone Should Read".Interesting Literature.17 February 2017.Retrieved17 November2022.
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