About Wendy Cope: Wendy Cope is a contemporary English poet. She read history at St Hilda's College, Oxford. She now lives in Ely with the poet Lachlan Mackinnon.
I was single for a long time and felt very much alone in the world, and talk of family values upset me very much at that phase in my life, because I used to think: 'What about people like me?'
Bloody men are like bloody buses — You wait for about a year And as soon as one approaches your stop Two or three others appear. You look at them flashing their indicators, Offering you a ride. You’re trying to read the destinations, You haven’...
On Waterloo Bridge where we said our goodbyes, the weather conditions bring tears to my eyes. I wipe them away with a black woolly glove And try not to notice I've fallen in love On Waterloo Bridge I am trying to think: This is nothing. you're high o...
The day he moved out was terrible – That evening she went through hell. His absence wasn’t a problem But the corkscrew had gone as well.
Write to amuse? What an appalling suggestion! I write to make people anxious and miserable and to worsen their indigestion.
Making Cocoa For Kingsley Amis It was a dream I had last week And some kind of record seemed vital. I knew it wouldn't be much of a poem But I love the title.
Bloody Christmas, here again, let us raise a loving cup, peace on earth, goodwill to men, and make them do the washing up.
I think it's a question which particularly arises over women writers: whether it's better to have a happy life or a good supply of tragic plots.
There is some humour in 'Family Values.' I don't want everyone to think it's not going to make them laugh. But there are quite a lot of poems there that aren't funny at all.
I've never been more famous than I was, suddenly, in 1986.
Possibly I've become less funny as I've been happier.
I like a quiet life.
In my case, the long gaps between my books have got quite a lot to do with lack of confidence. A lot of the time when I'm not writing I start thinking I can't do it.
Bloody men are like bloody buses - you wait for about a year and as soon as one approaches your stop two or three others appear.
I've said what I'm prepared to say in my poems, and then journalists think that you're going to tell them a whole lot more.
The interesting thing is that you don't often meet a poet who doesn't have a sense of humour, and some of them do keep it out of their poems because they're afraid of being seen as light versifiers.
I always tell students that writing a poem and publishing it are two quite separate things, and you should write what you have to write, and if you're afraid it's going to upset someone, don't publish it.
I have a theory that if you've got the kind of parents who want to send you to boarding school, you're probably better off at boarding school.
I like buying clothes, especially as I get a tax-deductible allowance.
Another Christmas Poem Blood Christmas, here again. Let us raise a loving cup: Peace on earth, goodwill to men, And make them do the washing-up.
