Family Values
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Review
'As always with Wendy Cope, the joy of these poems is their accessibility. Each one as carefully pared back as a good joke ... those who find poetry a closed door couldn't find a better way in than this book.' --The Herald
Book Description
A stunning new edition of Wendy Cope's charming collection, Family Values
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
This collection of poems deals with issues that everyone can relate to, from Christmas carols to the insecurities of childhood and thoughts of death. The poems are a mixture of reminiscence and contemplation, interspersed with typical Wendy Cope humour. There are some delightful touches. One pair of poems is written from the viewpoint of each halves of a first date, at a classical music concert, with both anxious to talk intelligently about it afterwards, and neither wishing to appear too interested in the other. The final section contains poems commissioned by Radio 4, ending with the evocative `Closedown':-
`...Someone, all alone,
Reads the shipping forecast
To a microphone.'
It's a simple poem but, like so much of Wendy Cope's work, its subject is something those who've heard or experienced it can identify with. The poems may not ring with the beauty of language found in some other poetry but they're easy to read and easy to understand. What's more, they rhyme and their form takes in traditional patterns such as the villanelle (as in, `Do not go gentle into that good night' by Dylan Thomas).
It isn't a criticism to suggest that they're accessible and not too challenging. Having first read them all from start to finish, I know this is a volume I shall enjoy dipping into again and again.
`...Someone, all alone,
Reads the shipping forecast
To a microphone.'
It's a simple poem but, like so much of Wendy Cope's work, its subject is something those who've heard or experienced it can identify with. The poems may not ring with the beauty of language found in some other poetry but they're easy to read and easy to understand. What's more, they rhyme and their form takes in traditional patterns such as the villanelle (as in, `Do not go gentle into that good night' by Dylan Thomas).
It isn't a criticism to suggest that they're accessible and not too challenging. Having first read them all from start to finish, I know this is a volume I shall enjoy dipping into again and again.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
More than any poet since Betjeman, Wendy Cope has the rare gift of being funny and serious - often in the same poem. That is crucial. Beneath the jaunty villanelles, the comic repetitions and the triple-metre, some hard truths about life and love are being smuggled in. One favourite is the poem 'April'. I quote it here in full:
'The birds are singing loudly overhead
As if to celebrate the April weather.
I want to stay in this lovely world forever
And be with you, my love, and share your bed.
I don't believe I'll see you when we're dead.
I don't believe we'll meet and be together.
The birds are singing loudly overhead.
I want to stay in this lovely world forever.'
Like Auden's 'Lullaby', the poem gains its power and maturity from cherishing what it knows is only temporary.
Two other poems, 'Health Scare' and 'Keep Saying This', are franker confrontations with illness and death, and rhyme and repetition become charms, invoked to keep despair at bay ('It helps to say their names and make them rhyme'). You can't help being reminded that 'Ring-a-ring-of-roses' was written about the Black Death.
Accepting futility, though, doesn't mean going down without a fight. Cope's sharp (but never withering) sense of humour can deliver wicked, one-two combinations to the head, as in 'Special Needs', 'Unbearable', 'Football', and 'Differences of Opinion':
'He tells her the earth is flat -
He knows the facts, and that is that.
In altercations, fierce and long
She tries her to best to prove him wrong.
But he has learned to argue well.
He calls her arguments unsound
And often asks her not to yell.
She cannot win. He stands his ground.
The planet goes on being round.'
Cope's quality control system is a sound as ever. Her collections may be few, but they're always worth waiting for. A worthy addition to the Cope canon, and a treat for readers everywhere.
'The birds are singing loudly overhead
As if to celebrate the April weather.
I want to stay in this lovely world forever
And be with you, my love, and share your bed.
I don't believe I'll see you when we're dead.
I don't believe we'll meet and be together.
The birds are singing loudly overhead.
I want to stay in this lovely world forever.'
Like Auden's 'Lullaby', the poem gains its power and maturity from cherishing what it knows is only temporary.
Two other poems, 'Health Scare' and 'Keep Saying This', are franker confrontations with illness and death, and rhyme and repetition become charms, invoked to keep despair at bay ('It helps to say their names and make them rhyme'). You can't help being reminded that 'Ring-a-ring-of-roses' was written about the Black Death.
Accepting futility, though, doesn't mean going down without a fight. Cope's sharp (but never withering) sense of humour can deliver wicked, one-two combinations to the head, as in 'Special Needs', 'Unbearable', 'Football', and 'Differences of Opinion':
'He tells her the earth is flat -
He knows the facts, and that is that.
In altercations, fierce and long
She tries her to best to prove him wrong.
But he has learned to argue well.
He calls her arguments unsound
And often asks her not to yell.
She cannot win. He stands his ground.
The planet goes on being round.'
Cope's quality control system is a sound as ever. Her collections may be few, but they're always worth waiting for. A worthy addition to the Cope canon, and a treat for readers everywhere.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Wendy Cope's poems have an instant appeal: they speak of what it is to be human, and flawed. The first poem of this collection, "A Christmas Song" speaks of "all the men and women whose love affairs went wrong", "separated parents whose turn it is to grieve while children hang their stockings up elsewhere on Christmas Eve". But Wendy Cope isn't sentimental, she faces these imperfections, and finds humanity. There is a wry humour about her poems that promotes a robust attitude to life. This is a marvellous collection, she doesn't put a foot wrong.
Other reviewers have spoken of their favourite poems in this collection. Mine is "An Anniversary Poem", on the tenth anniversary of the ordination of women as priests in the Church of England, which brings out the exasperated affection that so many of us feel for that flawed institution. "The C of E is treating us as equals. Just about" she writes. And "Some men behave atrociously, but most are not too bad." Many men, ashamed of the way women have been treated, and vowing to do better themselves, will be grateful for that. But reading Wendy Cope, we know better than to become complacent.
Other reviewers have spoken of their favourite poems in this collection. Mine is "An Anniversary Poem", on the tenth anniversary of the ordination of women as priests in the Church of England, which brings out the exasperated affection that so many of us feel for that flawed institution. "The C of E is treating us as equals. Just about" she writes. And "Some men behave atrociously, but most are not too bad." Many men, ashamed of the way women have been treated, and vowing to do better themselves, will be grateful for that. But reading Wendy Cope, we know better than to become complacent.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
A lovely book to dip into.
The poems in this book come under a few categories, childhood including a school, concert-goers, and the BBC. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Tess
another brilliant volume.
Her poems are so resonant, lacking in pomposity and accessible without being overtly sentimental. More than that, several of them have me laughing out loud.
Published 6 months ago by Mrs. Emma Lb Walker
Light with Depth
Technically, Wendy Cope convinces doubters that blank verse really can be called poetry.
But we do not read her for her technique. Read more
But we do not read her for her technique. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Turaco
Family Values - Wendy Cope
There are no duds in this collection. Each poem catches the perception and mood of the moment with startling clarity - moments of wry reflection, new-born understanding,... Read more
Published 9 months ago by J. Alexander
Poetry for today
Fantastic book.perceptive,funny and concise. Wendy Cope has an amazing ability to write poetry around life experiences common to many in 2011. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Dr Andrew T Wilson
Enjoyable and very clever
I don't feel qualified to review poetry. Suffice to say that this is a hugely enjoyable collection, some of the poems revealing childhood sadnesses, others fears of ageing and... Read more
Published 10 months ago by booksetc
highly recommended
It's not Robert Lowell's "Life Studies" but this collection feature many poems dealing with Wendy Cope's early life and family. Read more
Published 13 months ago by William Jordan
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