Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis - Wendy Cope
Fri, 2002-05-31 10:18
#1
Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis - Wendy Cope
took this to bed with me like a good boy last night, but didn't really get on with it. it's very much a collection of poems for poetry connoisseurs, and not exactly the barrel of laughs promised on the blurb. more the kind of thing that people who laugh at everything when attending a theatrical performance laugh at.
if in ungenerous mood, i would describe it as being full of piss-takes of other, better poets. not that original either. Larkin is dull, Eliot is obscurely academic, Hughes obscurely naturalistic. half-way through her Wasteland limericks, i found myself getting out of bed and going over to the cupboard to get the real thing out.
she has a skilful eye for mimicry, and is an adroit rhymer, but i couldn't discover much else to hold my attention.
any Cope fans out there who want to argue her case?
Emily Dubberley
Yes and no. I've got to admit that her pastiches and Strugnell stuff do nothing for me but she *is* one of my favourite poets for all her other stuff.
Tich Miller is incredible - one of my favourite poems of all time - makes me cry and reminds me of my school days.
http://www.nth-dimension.co.uk/vl/poem.asp?id=1417
Engineers Corner is a great piece of vitriol
http://www.nth-dimension.co.uk/vl/poem.asp?id=342
And her relationship poetry is really cool - maybe it's a female thing but it rang very true for me.
(NB: I'm certainly not a poetry connoisseur - or at least not of the serious, worthy poetry I think you mean and I don't go to the theatre)
chant
okay, i'll go and look at them.
by poetry connoisseur, i mean that you're not really going to get pastiches of Larkin, Eliot, Hughes etc unless you've actually read Larkin, Eliot, Hughes. these are in-jokes for the knowledgeable bourgeoisie, it seems to me.
what was particularly disappointing was that the blurb described this book as the one that had 'catapulted Cope into the limelight'. if you get catapulted into the limelight for writing poems that only the cognoscenti are likely to get, then it seems to me that poetry is, once again, in danger of marginalising itself.
in fact, the thing that most interested me about MCFKA was a quote by Ted Hughes that headed up one of the poems:-
'the progress of any writer is marked by those moments when he
manages to outwit his own inner police system.'
Emily Dubberley
I agree entirely that those are a bit 'intelligencia' - although the 'knowledgeable bourgeoisie' are maybe more likely to buy poetry books so maybe it's catering to the audience? Sadly, that then reinforces the pattern.
I studied most of the people she pastiched at school/uni but still didn't find her pastiches that funny. Poetry *is* currently marginalised which is ridiculous. However, Cope did edit some accessible poetry books too (100 happy poems and their ilk) which helps get poetry out to a wider audience so she's got her good points :-)
As bobblehat has mentioned (I think) if you ask most non-poetry reading people to name a modern poet, they'll name Pam Ayres.
justyn_thyme
I would name Charles Bukowski, especially since I've never heard of Pam Ayres.
One of my favorites is Robert W. Service. Who is he, you may ask? He wrote some real classics, such as The Shooting of Dangerous Dan McGrew, Call of the Wild, Law of the Yukon, and The Cremation of Sam McGee. He was one of the highest paid writers in the world at one time and people all over the English speaking world could recite his works, even as recently as the 1950s. In addition to the Alaska stuff, he wrote volumes of poetry about WWI. That was all back in the days before poetry became the private preserve of the university elite.
David Floyd
Never head of the Pamster Justyn, you've missed out! Will try to find a website.
This thread encouraged to get my Wendy Cope books of the bookshelf. Strangely enough considering my gender and its subject matter 'Serious concerns' used to be one of my favourite poetry books about five years ago.
I have concluded that I still reckon it's very good. Making Cocoa is also all right. I reckon Cope is poetry's answer to Nick Hornby. She's very good at what she does and it's hard to dislike her but she's never written anything to get you dancing on the bed.
Not sure I agree with Emily's statement the marginalisation of poetry is ridiculous. It seems to me to be a consequence of a conscious decision taken by the majority of prominent people who write it.
David Floyd
As promised, address for website containing top Pam Ayres stuff below:
http://www.btinternet.com/~p.wilkinson2000/My_Teeth.htm
zyv
May I put in a good word for Roger Bear's Philosophical Pantoum (from Serious Concerns). Yeah, it's fluffy and trivial stuff with no hard sums in it, but man cannot live by Heaney alone.
I think Pam Ayers might be a little too dumbed down for most people's tastes (unless they are moved to tears by birthday card verse), but for another source of lightweight and undemanding trivia, how about Ogden Nash?
More than a catbird hates a cat,
Or a criminal hates a clue,
Or the Axis hates the United States,
That's how much I love you.
I love you more than a duck can swim... etc.
Or, for real intellectual stuff, there's always Zyv:
Wendy Cope, who is quite famis,
Likes to make coffee for Kingsley Amis.
Neighbours gossip in the gartin:
You should see what she does for Martin!