Thu Jan 29, 2009 5:04 pm
I'll stick some Cope poems here for general enjoyment - I presume there's no great objection to this? Shouldn't count as copyright violation.
First, a response to issues about "light verse" (she's written others but this is my favourite).
Serious Concerns
"She is witty and unpretentious, which is both her strength and her limitation." (Robert O'Brien in the Spectator, 25.10.86)
I'm going to try and overcome my limitation -
Away with sloth!
Now should I work at being less witty? Or more pretentious?
Or both?
"They (Roger McGouch and Brian apatten) have something in common with her, in that they all write to amuse." (ibid.)
Write to amuse? What an appalling suggestion!
I write to make people anxious and miserable and to worsen their indigestion.
She's also, I'd say, the pre-eminent poet of our time when writing about love and heartbreak. Per exemple:
At 3 a.m.
the room contains no sound
except the ticking of the clock
which has begun to panic
like an insect, trapped
in an enormous box.
Books lie open on the carpet.
Somewhere else
you're sleeping
and beside you there's a woman
who is crying quietly
so you won't wake.
From June to December, 3. Summer Villanelle
You know exactly what to do -
Your kiss, your fingers on my thigh -
I think of little else but you.
It's bliss to have a lover who,
Touching one shoulder, make me sigh -
You know exactly what to do.
You make me happy through and through,
The way the sun lights up the sky -
I think of little else but you.
I hardly sleep - an hour two;
I can't eat much and this is why -
You know exactly what to do.
The move in my mind is blue -
As June runs into warm July
I think of little else but you.
But is it love? And is it true?
Who cares? This much I can't deny:
You know exactly what to do;
I think of little else but you.
And those really aren't the best of her poems about love, there's so many...But if you want "meaningful" or deep (depending on what you really mean by that), how about this:
If I Don't Know
If I don't know how to be thankful enough
for the clusters of white blossom
on our mock orange, which has grown tall
and graceful, come into its own
like a new star just out of ballet school,
and if I don't know what to do
about those spires of sky-blue delphinium,
then what about the way they look together?
And what about the roses, or just one of them -
that solid pinky-peachy bloom.
that hollows towards its heart? Outrageous.
I could crush it to bits.
A photograph? A dance to summer?
I sit on the swing and cry.
The rose. The gardenful. The evening light.
It's nine o'clock and I can still see everything.
Last edited by
OwenEdwards on Thu Jan 29, 2009 5:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.