finding wendy cope

Julia giving me my ultrasound treatment.


When I was browsing the Poetry section in Chapters yesterday, an elderly man came up beside me and began browsing the shelf as well, muttering to himself. He asked me what kind of poetry I was looking for.

I've never been much of a social bookstore browser. Even when I go to a bookstore with a friend, we tend to immediately split up upon entering the store to go wander in our favorite sections. If I'm in serious book browsing mode, I don't want to be chatting with anyone while I'm doing it.

So when this guy asked me what kind of poetry I was looking for, I groaned inwardly. He was obviously the chatty type.

"Romantic poetry," I said politely but in a neutral and what I hoped was a 'please leave me alone now' tone of voice.

"Romantic poetry, eh?" the man said, perking up. "Then I'll expect you would be interested in the Victorian poets, like Elizabeth Browning." He rattled off some other names while I made some noncommittal hms and similar noises as I continued to to pretend that I was focusing on the bookshelf in front of me. When he kept talking, I put on my coat and then picked up my knapsack, trying to think of some polite excuse about why I had to leave.

"Have you ever heard of Wendy Cope?" the man asked suddenly.

"Um, no, I haven't," I said. "Anyway, I hope you find the poetry book you were looking for. . . " I started edging away, but he was staring down at the glasses case he had just opened.

"0h dear," he said, sounding quite distressed. "I think I must have left my glasses somewhere." He started patting his pockets and looking around. I helped him. "Perhaps I left my glasses at home. Yes, I'm sure that's what I did. Could you possibly help me look for Wendy Cope? I'm sure she must be on this shelf somewhere, but I can't read the names without my glasses."

Resigning myself, I put down my knapsack and searched the author names, pointed to a slim paperback with the author's name on the shelf. "Here's one."

The elderly man pulled the book off the shelf and thrust it into my hands. "You might like her," he told me. "She's quite good, quite funny. Anyway, I must be off now." And before I could say anything, he left, muttering to himself.

With a sigh, I started to put the book back on the shelf, but then I hesitated. I might as well take a quick look, I thought.

I ended up buying the book.

For copyright reasons, I would rather not post any of the poems in her book. I did some searching online, however, and found some samples of her poems; the anchor links do not seem to work properly, so you'll have to scroll to the specific poems you want. "Flowers" and "Defining The Problem" are two of the poems in Serious Concerns that convinced me I had to buy the book. Some of her poems are indeed funny, sometimes a tad too cynical for my taste, but many also had an underlying honesty that appealed to me (especially the sad ones), and some were love poems of a sort.

I immediately felt guilty, of course, for not making more of an attempt to talk with my unexpected poetic advisor. With the book clutched in my hand, I went wandering through the store, looking up and down all the aisles. I never found him. :-(

I hope I will run into him someday so I can thank him properly.




Nick The Physiotherapist.


(This entry was written with ViaVoice, a voice recognition program, which sometimes has its own sense of humor. Please forgive any spelling or grammar quirks which Debbie has missed while editing. Thank you. )

June/2003 comments: Read | Post | LJ