Collected Poems - by Wendy Cope (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

"[Cope] writes the sort of poems almost no one does any longer . . . She seems always to know what to say, and what to do, in dark moments." -Dwight Garner, The New York Times Book Review

This volume comprises the full poetic works of one of England's wittiest, most beloved writers, and includes many previously uncollected poems.

When Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis was published in 1986, Wendy Cope became that rarest of creatures: a celebrated poet who was also a best-seller. Her artful combination of insight and wit made an extraordinary impact in poems that cocked a gentle snook at the pomposity of a literary world hitherto dominated by men.

Through four further collections, Cope has continued to delight her readers while finding a whole new generation of enthusiasts through her poem "The Orange". Together these poems catalogue the desires and fears that underlie our ordinary existences - love and heartbreak, disappointment and a hard-won capacity to find happiness, even if only in the form of a poem. In their profound attention to and encapsulation of the everyday, these poems serve to make our own lives the more remarkable and memorable. Collected Poems celebrates a lifetime's achievement by a poet who has been original and distinctive from the very start, and provides the perfect accompaniment to the trials, tribulations and joys of our all too human lives.

Review Quotes

Praise for Wendy Cope:

"We can love Wendy Cope's words . . . for the rhymes they reveal but also for the sad truths they speak." - Adam Gopnik, the New Yorker

"One has to go back to Byron to find a poet as consistently witty, wide-ranging and technically outstanding as Cope." - Los Angeles Review of Books

"We need not wonder at Wendy Cope's continued, wide appeal. She writes poems that people want to read, and this is how poems survive." - Literary Review

"Wit and heart? Cope's fans should rest assured there are enough gems here with both." - The Telegraph

"Wendy Cope's real strength lies not in charm or insight (she has buckets of both) but in the pitch-perfect exactitude of her writing." - The Sunday Times