Cope, Wendy

(1945- )

   Born in Erith, Kent, and educated at Farringtrons School in Chislehurst, Kent, she read history at St. Hilda's College, Oxford, trained as a teacher at Westminster College of Education, Oxford, and taught in primary schools in London. She was arts and reviews editor for Contact, the Inner London Education Authority magazine, and continued to teach part time before becoming a freelance writer in 1986. She was television critic for The Spectator magazine until 1990. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Prizes and awards: Michael Braude Award for Light Verse (American Academy of 1987 Cholmondeley Award), 1995. The Whitbread Poetry Award, short listed for her collection If I Don't Know, 2001. Some of her major poetry collections: Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis, 1988. Twiddling Your Thumbs, 1986. The River Girl, 1991. From Serious Concerns, 1992. Big Orchard Book of Funny Poems, 2000 (editor). Heaven on Earth: 101 Happy Poems, 2001 (editor). Some of her poems: "Emily Dickinson," "Engineers' Corner," "English Weather," "Giving Up Smoking," "Men are Like Bloody Buses," "Strugnell's Sonnets," "Waste Land Limericks."

   Sources: A Poem a Day, Karen McCosker and Nicholas Albery, eds. Steer Forth Press, 1996. Poems of Wendy Cope (http://www.arlindo-correia.com/050900.html). The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Norton Introduction to Literature. 7th edition. Jerome Beaty and J. Paul Hunter, eds. W.W. Norton, 1998. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. Who's Who. London: A & C Black, 2005. Author Search. Chadwyck-Healey Ltd., 1995 (http://www.lib.utexas.edu:8080/search/epoetry/author.html). The Anchor Antholog y of Seventeenth-Century Verse, Vol. II. Louis L. Martz and Richard S. Sylvester, ed. Doubleday Anchor Books, 1969. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000.