Wendy Cope

Last updated

Wendy Cope

OBE
Born (1945-07-21) 21 July 1945 (age 78)
Erith, Kent, England [1]
OccupationPoet
NationalityBritish
EducationWest Lodge Preparatory School, Sidcup, Kent
Farrington's School, Chislehurst, Kent
Alma mater St Hilda's College, Oxford
Period1980–present
Notable worksMaking Cocoa for Kingsley Amis
Serious Concerns
Notable awards Cholmondeley Award
1987

American Academy of Arts and Letters
1995

Michael Braude Award for Light Verse
1995
Spouse Lachlan Mackinnon

Wendy Cope OBE (born 21 July 1945) is a contemporary English poet. She read history at St Hilda's College, Oxford. She now lives in Ely, Cambridgeshire, with her husband, the poet Lachlan Mackinnon.

Contents

Biography

Cope was born in Erith in Kent (now in the London 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 in Sidcup and Farrington's School, Chislehurst, both in Kent. [1] After graduating from St Hilda's College and Westminster College, Oxford, Cope spent fourteen years as a primary-school teacher. [2] In 1981, she became Arts and Reviews editor for the Inner London Education Authority magazine, Contact. Five years later she became a freelance writer and was a television critic for The Spectator magazine until 1990. [3]

Five collections of her adult poetry have been published, Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis in 1986, Serious Concerns in 1992, If I Don't Know in 2001, Family Values in 2011, and Anecdotal Evidence in 2018. She has also edited several anthologies of comic verse and was a judge of the 2007 Man Booker Prize. [4]

In 1998, she was voted the listeners' choice in a BBC Radio 4 poll to succeed Ted Hughes as Poet Laureate. [5] When Andrew 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 Duffy succeeded Motion as Poet Laureate.

Cope was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2010 Birthday Honours. [7] In April 2011, the British Library purchased 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 The papers also includes 67 poetry notebooks and unpublished poems.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 asked Andrew Motion what 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 a civil partnership. [9]

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

Critical reception

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] Dr Rowan Williams is 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 critic Rory Waterman published the first critical book on her work, for the Writers and Their Work series. [13]

Three haikus from Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis, where they are presented as being written by the (fictional) Tulse Hill poet Jason Strugnell, were set by the composer Colin Matthews in 1990 as Strugnell'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 musician Jools Holland and singer Louise Marshall. [15]

Progression of style

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), and Anecdotal 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 of Serious Concerns in 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 Concerns stands 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 is Anecdotal Evidence. Her favourite of her own poems is 'Flowers' from Serious Concerns.

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

Bibliography

Cope's poetry for adults

Collections of Cope's poetry for children

Limited editions and selections

Other publications

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kingsley Amis</span> English author, critic and teacher (1922–1995)

Sir Kingsley William Amis was an English novelist, poet, critic and teacher. He wrote more than 20 novels, six volumes of poetry, a memoir, short stories, radio and television scripts, and works of social and literary criticism. He is best known for satirical comedies such as Lucky Jim (1954), One Fat Englishman (1963), Ending Up (1974), Jake's Thing (1978) and The Old Devils (1986).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ted Hughes</span> English poet and childrens writer (1930–1998)

Edward James Hughes was an English poet, translator, and children's writer. Critics frequently rank him as one of the best poets of his generation and one of the twentieth century's greatest writers. He was appointed Poet Laureate in 1984 and held the office until his death. In 2008, The Times ranked Hughes fourth on its list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philip Larkin</span> English writer and librarian (1922–1985)

Philip Arthur Larkin was an English poet, novelist, and librarian. His first book of poetry, The North Ship, was published in 1945, followed by two novels, Jill (1946) and A Girl in Winter (1947). He came to prominence in 1955 with the publication of his second collection of poems, The Less Deceived, followed by The Whitsun Weddings (1964) and High Windows (1974). He contributed to The Daily Telegraph as its jazz critic from 1961 to 1971, with his articles gathered in All What Jazz: A Record Diary 1961–71 (1985), and edited The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse (1973). His many honours include the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. He was offered, but declined, the position of Poet Laureate in 1984, following the death of Sir John Betjeman.

Elizabeth Joan Jennings was an English poet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carol Ann Duffy</span> Scottish poet and playwright (born 1955)

Dame Carol Ann Duffy is a Scottish poet and playwright. She is a professor of contemporary poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University, and was appointed Poet Laureate in May 2009, and her term expired in 2019. She was the first female poet, the first Scottish-born poet and the first openly lesbian poet to hold the Poet Laureate position.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Simon Armitage</span> English poet (born 1963)

Simon Robert Armitage is an English poet, playwright, musician and novelist. He was appointed Poet Laureate on 10 May 2019. He is professor of poetry at the University of Leeds.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrew Motion</span> English poet and writer (born 1952)

Sir Andrew Motion is an English poet, novelist, and biographer, who was Poet Laureate from 1999 to 2009. During the period of his laureateship, Motion founded the Poetry Archive, an online resource of poems and audio recordings of poets reading their own work. In 2012, he became President of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, taking over from Bill Bryson.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brunette Coleman</span> Pseudonym used by the poet and writer Philip Larkin

Brunette Coleman was a pseudonym used by the poet and writer Philip Larkin. In 1943, towards the end of his time as an undergraduate at St John's College, Oxford, he wrote several works of fiction, verse and critical commentary under that name, including homoerotic stories that parody the style of popular writers of contemporary girls' school fiction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sonia Sanchez</span> American poet, playwright and activist (born 1934)

Sonia Sanchez is an American poet, writer, and professor. She was a leading figure in the Black Arts Movement and has written over a dozen books of poetry, as well as short stories, critical essays, plays, and children's books. In the 1960s, Sanchez released poems in periodicals targeted towards African-American audiences, and published her debut collection, Homecoming, in 1969. In 1993, she received Pew Fellowship in the Arts, and in 2001 was awarded the Robert Frost Medal for her contributions to the canon of American poetry. She has been influential to other African-American poets, including Krista Franklin. Sanchez is a member of The Wintergreen Women Writers Collective.

Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.

Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.

Lachlan Mackinnon is a contemporary British poet, critic and literary journalist. Born in Aberdeen, he was raised in England and the United States. He was educated at Charterhouse and Christ Church, Oxford. He took early retirement from teaching English at Winchester College in 2011 and moved to Ely with his wife, the poet Wendy Cope.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julia Copus</span> British poet, biographer and childrens writer

Julia Copus FRSL is a British poet, biographer and children's writer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kay Ryan</span> American poet

Kay Ryan is an American poet and educator. She has published seven volumes of poetry and an anthology of selected and new poems. From 2008 to 2010 she was the sixteenth United States Poet Laureate. In 2011 she was named a MacArthur Fellow and she won the Pulitzer Prize.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephen Spender</span> English poet and man of letters (1909–1995)

Sir Stephen Harold Spender was an English poet, novelist and essayist whose work concentrated on themes of social injustice and the class struggle. He was appointed U.S. Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1965.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Poetry Library</span> Library in London

The National Poetry Library is a free public collection housed at Royal Festival Hall in London's Southbank Centre. Situated on the fifth floor of the Royal Festival Hall, overlooking the river Thames, the library aims to hold all contemporary UK poetry publications since 1912. It houses the largest collection in Britain, numbering over 200,000 items, including works by small presses. It also holds audio and video materials, critical texts and works for children for loan and reference.

Strugnell as a surname may refer to:

<i>Strugnells Haiku</i> Three songs for voice and piano by Colin Matthews

Strugnell's Haiku is a collection of three songs for voice and piano by the composer Colin Matthews, set to haiku poems by Jason Strugnell, an alter ego of the poet Wendy Cope.

References

  1. 1 2 Lewis, Helen (3 December 2011). "Wendy Cope interview: "I can't die until I've sorted out the filing cabinets"". New Statesman. Retrieved 23 November 2016.
  2. ↑ "Laughter in the dark". The Guardian . 26 May 2001. Retrieved 1 August 2023.
  3. ↑ "Wendy Cope". British Council. Retrieved 9 March 2024.
  4. ↑ "Wendy Cope OBE is a contemporary English poet". Booker Prize Foundation. Retrieved 9 March 2024.
  5. 1 2 3 "The Guardian "Wendy Cope: I don't want to be laureate" 2 June 2008". TheGuardian.com . Retrieved 27 January 2019.
  6. ↑ University Challenge – Jesus, Oxford vs Warwick. Part 2 of 3. on YouTube
  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. Retrieved 16 February 2017.
  10. ↑ "BBC Radio 4 - Desert Island Discs, Wendy Cope, poet". BBC. Retrieved 27 January 2019.
  11. 1 2 "Wendy Cope - poetryarchive.org". poetryarchive.org. Retrieved 27 January 2019.
  12. ↑ "poetryarchive.org" [ permanent dead link ] A Tour of the Archive with Dr Rowan Williams
  13. ↑
  14. ↑ Matthews, Colin (1990). Strugnell's Haiku. London: Faber Music. ISBN   9780571511730
  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. ISBN   978-110-7467-92-7.
  16. ↑ "Wendy Cope - Literature". literature.britishcouncil.org. Retrieved 30 November 2022.
  17. 1 2 3 "Los Angeles Review of Books". Los Angeles Review of Books. 27 February 2018. Retrieved 17 November 2022.
  18. ↑ "10 of the Best Wendy Cope Poems Everyone Should Read". Interesting Literature. 17 February 2017. Retrieved 17 November 2022.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.