If I Don't Know
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Wendy Cope is one of the few modern British poets to regularly enter the bestsellers list and, with her book of verses If I Don't Know, it is easy to see why. Cope started out as a teacher and worked for a number of years in several of London's junior schools before becoming a freelance writer and columnist. In 1986, she produced her first book of poems Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis, which contained various literary in-jokes, her work parodying the style of a number of key 20th-century poets; it was funny, accomplished and unique "light verse"--a term Cope dislikes because she feels that, "it is used as a way of dismissing poets who allow humour into their work".
If I Don't Know is less dominated by both parody and humour, less subservient to the canon and is a stronger collection for it. The trademark skills are still here but a darker and warmer, more personal, more direct style is in evidence as is an abiding concern with love and loss. In "Dead Sheep Poem" a dead sheep ("the skull / and jawbone, clean as carved ivory") is contemplated, violated even, by the just-arrived "person with the notebook". In "Tulips" the pleasure of watching her flowers is overshadowed by the knowledge that they will soon die, "Every day I wonder how long they will be here ... I almost wish them / gone". And a more critical, political note is struck in "Sonnet of '68" and the tender, sad "After Prague": "Hope is a long leash, / drawn in slowly". The last, long narrative poem "The Teacher's Tale" is a moving account of Paul ("He teaches nowadays. / He isn't bad at it.") and his troubled early years, "He got off with a caution ... Vowed silently he'd never steal again". Wendy Cope is an eminently readable, intelligent and always sympathetic poet and this is another fine collection of her work. --Mark Thwaite --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
Review
"Cope has an extraordinarily canny sense - quite rare among poets - of what will engage a reader's attention" - Dana Gioia, Poetry Review. "A jet-age Tennyson" - Nicholas Tredell, London Review of Books."
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I think what often puts one off reading poetry is the sense that it is too grand - too concerned with the fundamentals of the universe to be of much relevance to the ordinary everyday person. Wendy Cope however has always managed to relate the two in a very simple and effective way. Her humour is always refreshing and never misplaced. She may never be regarded by the establishment in the same way as the Hughes', Wordworths' and Byrons' of this world are, but I will always see her as being one of the best poets I have personally ever encountered.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Unless you are very highbrow, this accessible collection of poems is waiting to entertain you. It is a mixture of discipline - villanelle, haiku, ballad - and free verse. Such is the poet's ability to diversify in subject and form retaining the humour.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
These poems cover a range of subjects from lost socks through pedigree pigs to fireworks. She uses formal styles such as triolets and villanelles as well as free verse to great effect. She makes seem effortless what is no doubt effortful to achieve.
Also included is a long poem, the Teacher's tale, a modern day tale in the style of Chaucer.
The best of these poems make you think - yes. It is like that, isn't it.
A worthy successor to Taking Cocoa with Kingsley Amis and an example to point at and say that not all good poems need to be about death or nature.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
A poet not taking her serious moments seriously enough...
I am an admirer of Wendy Cope's delightfully witty and deceptively easy style, but this rather more serious collection disappointed me. Read more
Published on 4 Dec 2007 by Jeremy Bevan
typical cope
this latest collection is typical of cope's work. a pretty good use of humor, rhymes that sometimes are singsongy, and a whole host of villanelles. Read more
Published on 7 Jan 2002 by adead_poet@hotmail.com
Great example of how poetry should be written
Not reading much of Cope's work prior to this, I feared most if not all her writing to be heavily feministic. Quite the contrary. Read more
Published on 2 Jan 2002
Excellent new collection from an eminently accessible poet.
Wendy Cope burst onto the poetry scene with 'Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis' - a collection of 'humorous' poems which saw her work considered 'lightweight' (a theme touched on in... Read more
Published on 1 Jun 2001
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