(Poem #1573) Strugnell's Sonnets (iv) Not only marble, but the plastic toys From cornflake packets will outlive this rhyme I can't immortalize you, love - our joys Will lie unnoticed in the vault of time. When Mrs. Thatcher has been cast in bronze And her administration is a page In some O-Level text-book, when the dons Have analysed the story of our age, When travel firms sell tours of outer space When aeroplanes take off without a sound And Tulse Hill has become a trendy place And upper Norwood's on the underground Your beauty and my name will be forgotten - My love is true, but all my verse is rotten |
(from "Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis) Notes: Parody of Shakespeare's Sonnet LV, "Nor Marble nor the Gilded Monuments". Strugnell is Cope's fictional creation, a 'rimer' whose tragedy it is to fall under the obvious influence of one great poet after another. One of my happier poetry purchases over the last year was Cope's delightful volume, "Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis". It's rare that I will sit and read a single-poet collection through in one sitting, but Cope kept me entranced all the way to the end, and laughing out loud as often as not. Today's poem was definitely one of the laugh-out-loud ones, particuarly for the superb image in the opening two lines. Many great poets have turned their hands towards parody, but this particular form of bathos is something Cope handles better than anyone I've seen. (For another great Strugnellian juxtaposition of the high poetic and the utterly commonplace, see Poem #587 and its "incandescent football in the East"). After that, the poem sadly degenerates a bit, with Strugnell amply establishing his credentials as a Bad Poet, but lacking that touch of inspired unselfconsciousness that makes the Strugnell/Cope poems so funny. But the ending makes up for all that, with its utterly memorable lament - "my love is true, but all my verse is rotten" (incidentally, a dig at yet another Shakespearean sonnet). Pure genius. martin Links: Sonnet LV: http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/shakespeare/not_marble_nor_gilded.html Sonnet CXXX: Poem #44 More on "Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis" after Poem #693, and more on Cope after Poem #1323
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On Thu, 2004-12-16 at 14:31 -0800, Martin Julian DeMello wrote:
> One of my happier poetry purchases over the last year was Cope's delightful
> volume, "Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis". It's rare that I will sit and read
> a single-poet collection through in one sitting, but Cope kept me entranced
> all the way to the end, and laughing out loud as often as not.
I discovered Cope some years ago. I like "Kingsley Amis" quite a bit.
Another side of her that I really like is the lovely "Midsummer
Villanelle" (is that the title?).
The whole poem sequence it appears in is funny, but the grace and
playfulness of that erotic lyric really stands out.
Breen
CHROMA MUSE--
THIS FORM OF POETRY IS A DIGEST OF THE GREAT SHAKESPEAREAN WORK.
WHICH TOUCHES MY MINND IN THE NAME OF DICTION WHICH IT LOCKS.
THIS POEM IS HIGHLY INTELLECTUAL
THOUGH A PARODY IN SPIRITUAL
u guys have been helpfull
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