U.A. Fanthorpe
U.A. Fanthorpe (1929-2009) was born in Kent and read English at St Anne’s College, Oxford, before training as a teacher. She was Head of English at Cheltenham Ladies’ College, and then ‘became a middle-aged drop-out in order to write’, publishing her first collection, Side Effects, in 1978. Her eight volumes of poetry were all published by Peterloo, and her Selected Poems was published by Penguin in 1986. Enitharmon Press published her Christmas Poems and From Me to You, love poems by Fanthorpe and R. V. Bailey.
In 1994 U. A. Fanthorpe was the first woman to be nominated for the post of Professor of Poetry at Oxford. She was awarded the CBE in 2001 and the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2003, when her Collected Poems were published. In 2010 Enitharmon also published her definitive volume New and Collected Poems which features a preface by The Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy. Berowne’s Book was published by Enitharmon in 2015.
Photograph © Caroline Forbes
U. A. Fanthorpe: Selected Poems
Selected Poems by U. A. Fanthorpe
U.A. Fanthorpe was that rarest of literary beings - a poet who was hugely popular with the general public and at the same time very seriously regarded by fellow poets and literary critics for her originality, wit and humanity. Since her death, much of her work has been out of print. Selected Poems is chosen from over thirty years of Fanthorpe’s distinctive and accessible writing by her partner R.V. Bailey. It will delight all her existing fans as well as those who come to her poems for the first time.
£9.99
From Me to You: Love Poems
U. A. Fanthorpe and R. V. Bailey write:
‘Wordsworth speaks of the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings. This seems an apt description of these love poems. They are not important resonant pieces of writing: they simply happened when one of us felt like writing to the other, quite often when one of us was away from home. Some of them coincided with Valentine's Days or birthdays, but that was more a matter of good luck than foresight. Quakers, rightly, maintain that Christmas Day is only one important day of all the 365 important days of the year. It's the same with...
£9.99
Berowne's Book
Berowne’s Book
This book was written before Fanthorpe made her reputation as one of England’s most popular contemporary poets. "In 1974, having found that the way to get a job was to conceal my qualifications," she wrote, "I contrived to be taken on as a clerk/receptionist in a small hospital." "Poetry" she said, "struck during my first month behind the desk." Her observations are accompanied here by some of her very earliest poems. These are hilarious, tender, profound and deeply humane. This series of snapshots of hospital life in the 1970s shocks partly because so much is immediately familiar today.
£9.99
Christmas Poems
Christmas Poems
U.A. Fanthorpe's collection gathers together the poems she wrote and sent to friends as Christmas cards from 1974 to 2002. Now readers can enjoy Fanthorpe's yearly output in its entirety. Her subject matter covers a broad range of seasonal characters, from angels to personified Christmas trees, as well as a variety of styles to match, from moments of beautiful lyricism to the comically touching Gloucestershire foxes begging baby Jesus to visit: 'Come live wi we under Westridge / Where the huntin folk be few'. Fanthorpe is witty and highly original, rethinking the Nativity from quirky angles. She creates her...
£9.99