WENDY COPE

From a motorway service area to her ambivalent relationship with religion, Wendy Cope covers a wide range of experience in her new collection. Her mordant humour and formal ingenuity are in evidence, even as she remembers the wounds of a damaging childhood; and in poems about love and the inevitable problems of aging she achieves an intriguing blend of sadness and joy. Two very different sets of commissioned poems round off a remarkable volume, whose opening poem sounds clearly the profound note of compassion which underlies the whole.

Wendy Copes first book of poems and parodies, Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis, went straight into the bestseller lists. Its successor, Serious Concerns has proved even more popular, addressing such topics as Bloody Men, Men and Their Boring Arguments, Two Cures for Love, Kindness to Animals and Tumps (Typically Useless Male Poets).

Wendy Copes most recent collection, her first since Serious Concerns in 1992, extends her concern with the comedy of the examined life (the way we have been, the way we sometimes are), and imagines those adjustments to the ordinary which would fulfil our futures, or allow us to realize the golden age of five minutes ago, or weigh the out there of the present moment, where what is in sight is also out of reach. These are poems of well-tempered yearning, conditional idylls which sing in praise of lying fallow, the creativity of daydream, the yeast of boredom, the truths of intermediacy. Wendy Copes formal tact is alertly present - in triolets, rondeaux, villanelles, squibs, epigrams - small forms whose power to disarm goes hand in hand with her characteristically tart ripostes to the way things (usually) are. This collection extends the variousness of her occasions.

When Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis was first published, it catapulted its author into the bestseller lists and established her as one of our funniest and most eloquent poets. There are so many kinds of awful men - One cant avoid them all. She often said Shed never make the same mistake again: She always made a new mistake instead. (from Rondeau Redouble)

The idea for this book grew out of Wendy Copes experience of meeting her audience, when reading her poems in schools. This is an edition of the poems which identifies the references, verse-forms, contexts and occasions of her work, and which offers readers a new arrangement of the poetry as a whole. The notes also identify dates of composition, so that it is possible to observe the development of her work. As well as drawing on Wendy Copes three published books, the selection also includes a significant number of poems collected or published for the first time.

In her first collection of new poetry since 2011s acclaimed Family Values, Wendy Cope celebrates the half-forgotten stories of our lives with compassion, wisdom and wit. Cope continues to be the most generous of authors, sharing her experience of childhood and marriage and writing poignantly about the passing of time. In several of the poems she reimagines Shakespeare in unorthodox fashion; in others she offers heartfelt tributes to friends and to public figures including Eric Morecambe and John Cage. Anecdotal Evidence demonstrates the formal brilliance and empathetic insight which have delighted readers for years, and shows why Wendy Cope is one of our best-loved poets.

For more than thirty years Wendy Cope has been one of the nations most popular and respected poets. Christmas Poems collects together her best festive poems, including anthology favourites such as The Christmas Life, together with new and previously unpublished work. Cope celebrates the joyful aspects of the season but doesnt overlook the problems and sadness it can bring. With lively illustrations to accompany the words, it is a book to enjoy this Christmas and in years to come.

My heart has made its mind upAnd Im afraid its you.The Orange provides the perfect introduction to Wendy Cope, one of Britains wittiest, best-selling and best-loved poets. In poems that can turn from laugh-out-loud funny to deeply moving, Wendy Cope offers reflections on love and life. From the joy of falling - and being - in love to ways to help you deal with a painful break-up or the memories of people loved and lost, this is a book you will want to savour and share with all your friends.Wendy Copes readership, numerous and adoring, is the envy of most poets. Copes real strength lies not in charm or insight (she has buckets of both) but in the pitch perfect exactitude of her writing.Sunday Times

In a gloriously exuberant anthology, Wendy Cope sets out to prove that misery doesn''t have all the best lines. What makes us happy? In her introduction the editor says of the subject-matter of these poems: ''A lot of them are about love - of lovers, spouses, children. There are also poems about places, the beauty of the natural world and the changing seasons, about company and solitude, about music, books, food and drink, and the pleasure of taking a shower. And there are some religious poems.'' Among the more surprising items are the Chinese Po Chu-l on the advantages of baldness, the eighteenth-century John Dyer on the kindly behaviour of his ox, and an unusually cheerful Thomas Hardy enjoying the sight of seven women laughing as they stagger, arm in arm, down an icy hill, Catullus, Chaucer, Clare, Dickinson, Betjeman and Larkin are among the contributors who help to demonstrate that people who believe that ''happiness writes white'' have got it wrong.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WALCOTT PRIZEHer poetry stands unsurpassed in its popularity and technical accomplishment - theres no better contemporary writer of forms such as the triolet - and in the wit, acuity and seriousness of purpose with which she shows us what it is to be human.Guardian This volume comprises the full poetic works of one of our 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 when her poem The Orange went viral. 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 lifetimes 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.This collection also features Nick Garlands original illustrations for The River Girl (1991).Her poetry stands unsurpassed in its popularity and technical accomplishment - theres no better contemporary writer of forms such as the triolet - and in the wit, acuity and seriousness of purpose with which she shows us what it is to be human. Rishi Dastidar, GuardianWe can love Wendy Copes words . . . for the rhymes they reveal but also for the sad truths they speak. Adam Gopnik, 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 BooksWe need not wonder at Wendy Copes continued, wide appeal. She writes poems that people want to read, and this is how poems survive. Literary ReviewWit and heart? Copes fans should rest assured there are enough gems here with both.TelegraphWendy Copes real strength lies not in charm or insight (she has buckets of both) but in the pitch-perfect exactitude of her writing.Sunday TimesHer poems are moving, memorable, funny, clever; they alert readers to what it means to be human.PN ReviewAny book of [Copes] work is a national treasure chest ... her work has, with care and precision, given us pathways to negotiate the world ... Her Collected Poems is as human as an embrace. Ian McMillan, BBC Radio 4s The Verb

The Orange provides the perfect introduction to Wendy Cope, one of Britain''s wittiest, best-selling and best-loved poets.In poems that can turn from laugh-out-loud funny to deeply moving, Wendy Cope offers reflections on love and life. From the joy of falling - and being - in love to ways to help you deal with a painful break-up or the memories of people loved and lost, this is a book you will want to savour and share with all your friends.