Wendy Cope: Lissadell

Included in Vox Populi for noncommercial, educational uses only.

Wendy Cope (born 1945) was raised in Kent, England, where her parents often recited poetry to her. She earned a BA in history and trained as a teacher at Oxford University. Cope taught in primary schools for many years before publishing her first book of poetry, Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis (1986). The collection was an incredible success, selling tens of thousands of copies in the UK. It also announced Cope’s remarkable talents for parody, word play, dexterity with received forms, and the use of humor to address grave topics. Cope’s poetry collections include Serious Concerns (1992); If I Don’t Know (2001); Two Cures for Love: Selected Poems 1979–2006 (2008); Family Values (2011); Christmas Poems (2017), and Anecdotal Evidence (2018). (Adapted from Academy of American Poets)