Description
Book SynopsisWhen she died, in 2009, Anthony Thwaite described U.A. Fanthorpe as a 'smiling subversive with a voice like bird-song'. An encouraging example to all late developers, this particular bird's voice took its time: she didn't become a poet until she was 45. But these examples of her very earliest work show the latent mastery and the rapid development of the craft that would bring her wide critical acclaim and an affectionate general readership. The mysteries of the trade gradually reveal themselves as rooted in a wide and uncensored range of subject-matter, a life-time's love of words, and an intuitive grasp of the mechanics of form and voice. Recognising her role so late, she was a woman in a hurry; there wasn't time for self-consciousness or grandiose notions of 'vocation'. 'A poet,' she said, 'is a smuggler. He imports things clandestinely which are not supposed to have got through the customs.' Poetry 'happened to me', she would say. Her job? To listen, to pass it on.
Trade ReviewThe peerless U.A. Fanthorpe roots herself in the very earth of English poetry, connecting herself to Hughes and Browning, but also and more pertinently to the real experience of English living so clear-eyed and so, well completely poetic. -- Stephen Fry
U.A. Fanthorpe is an extraordinary poet, one of the best of our 20th and 21st centuries. So quietly that we didn't notice what was happening, her poetry changed the way we see, the way we write. -- Gillian Clarke
U.A. possessed an endearing patriotism that was founded lastingly on love, not shakily on superiority. All her poems, in fact, were sourced in love. She could make the difficult accessible and accessible complex. She had not a smidgeon of pomposity or ego or self-regard. Indeed, if she had a fault as a poet, that fault was a closet virtue – modesty. She would have demurred herself, but U.A. Fanthorpe exerted a great influence on contemporary poetry. -- Carol Ann Duffy
Table of Contents7 Introduction by R.V. Bailey 19 A confused noise within 21 A funny set up 22 A high wind 23 A marriage 24 Administrator 25 All Souls 26 An honest enquiry 27 Apology for clarity 28 At Cadbury 30 Boarding kennels 31 Complaints Department 32 Consultant’s holiday 33 Crab 34 Cured depressive 35 Defeated 36 Demonstration of leuco-coagulation treatment to a conference of the Royal Society of Psychiatrists 38 Diagnosis 39 Durdham Down 40 Eavesdropper 41 Fairy-tale 42 For Sappho 43 From a bestiary 45 Gay Christians 46 George Herbert’s church at Bemerton 47 Gingerbread maker 48 Headmistress 49 House-hunting 50 In-patients 51 Infidelity 53 Introducing… 55 Job description: poet 56 Linguist 57 Management committee 58 Meeting at night 59 Miss Morris 60 Misunderstood 61 November in Bristol 62 O and M study: the boatman 65 Obsessive’s song 66 On a dead social worker 67 On behalf of Chaos 68 Paper friends 69 Passer-by 70 Phoenix 71 Playtime 72 Poem for temps 73 Problem picture 74 Rites de passage 75 Rodmell churchyard 76 Sexual delinquent 77 Sir 78 Song of the flea 79 Swifts 80 T-group 81 The bowl of roses 82 The brides of Christ 84 The golden girls 85 The head housemaid tells the receptionist a joke 87 The receptionist 88 This quiet little Welshwoman 89 To the Holy Ghost 90 Typist 91 Wise children 93 Woman’s world 94 Writer’s garden
