Classic Desert Island Discs - Wendy Cope

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 23 August 2020

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Wendy Cope is one of England’s most popular and widely-read contemporary poets. Wendy was born in Erith, Kent. Her father was 29 years older than her mother and she was sent to boarding school at the age of seven. Although English was her favourite subject at school, in a bid to defy her English teacher’s expectations, she read history at Oxford. Following graduation she became a primary school teacher. After the death of her father in 1971, Wendy entered psychoanalysis in 1973 and turned to writing poetry. Having attended evening classes in creative writing, one of her poems was published in a collection which brought her to the attention of Faber and Faber. Her first volume of poetry, Making Cocoa For Kingsley Amis, was published in 1986, and became an instant success, and she gave up teaching to become a full time writer. She has since published four volumes of a poetry: Serious Concerns (1992), If I Don’t Know (2001), Family Values (2011) and Anecdotal Evidence (2018) as well as two volumes for children, Twiddling Your Thumbs (1988) and The River Girl (1991). In 2011, Wendy sold her entire personal archive to the British Library, which consisted of 15 boxes of manuscript, including several unpublished early works. Wendy lives in Ely and is married to fellow poet, Lachlan Mackinnon. Presenter: Lauren Laverne Producer: Cathy Drysdale Show less

Transcript

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0:00.0	Laura LeVernier, we're taking our usual summer break, so until we're back on air,
0:04.0	we're showcasing a few programs from our back-cat log.
0:06.8	As usual, the music's been shortened for right reasons.
0:10.9	This week's guest is the poet Wendy Coupe, who I cast away in February 2019.
0:17.3	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.
0:30.0	Music
0:41.1	My cast away this week is Wendy Coupe, one of Britain's most popular contemporary poets.
0:46.2	She has a reputation for her wit, her masterful use of poetry's many forms,
0:50.7	everything from villainels to haiku, and for her subversive streak.
0:54.8	She made her name with observations on love, such as bloody men or like bloody buses,
0:59.6	and brilliant parodies of poets including Sheamus Heaney, Wordsworth and TS Eliot.
1:05.2	Her aesthetic sense of humour is matched by her ability to articulate uncomfortable truths
1:10.2	with remarkable clarity, and her subject matter is wide-ranging, covering everything from love
1:16.0	and psychoanalysis to alcohol and radio fall. It was teaching music at a primary school in London
1:22.3	that kindled her creative flame, when her first collection of poetry, making Cocoa for Kingsley
1:27.8	Amos, was published in 1986, it became a bestseller. Though her reputation as an overnight success
1:34.3	with a knack for parading the overwhelmingly male grades of the form, didn't initially
1:39.2	endear her to the overwhelmingly male establishment. However, since she described them as wicked as
1:45.4	a gin-less tonic and wildest pension plans, it seems the feeling was mutual, at least at first.
1:51.5	Now in her 70s, she's one of Britain's premier poets. She sold her entire personal archive to the
1:56.9	British Library and recently published her fifth collection. She has no plans to retire.
2:02.6	The only excuse for being a poet, she says, is that you couldn't help it. Wendy Cope,
	...

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