Cope, Wendy

England, (b. 1945)

Traditional Prize County Pigs

  1. 1 Wessex Saddleback
  2. A porcine aborigine,
  3. He has no trace of foreign blood.
  4. His ancestors were wild and free
  5. British pigs in British mud.
  6.  
  7. He’s a hardy, outdoor type,
  8. Who’s never heard of central heating.
  9. He doesn’t whine, he doesn’t gripe
  10. But, strong and silent, goes on eating.
  11.  
  12. 2 Oxfordshire Sandy and Black
  13. This piggy has a pedigree
  14. ‘That goes way back on Midlands farms.
  15. If she could read her family tree,
  16. She might design a coat of arms.
  17.  
  18. But she knows nothing of her line,
  19. And lives like any other sow,
  20. Taking care of little swine,
  21. Imprisoned in the here and now.
  22.  
  23. 3 Cornish Lop-eared
  24. A fine white pig of goodly size,
  25. He roots and gobbles from the ground
  26. But when he tries to look around,
  27. His lop ears droop across his eyes.
  28.  
  29. He doesn’t know the world is big
  30. And beautiful. He doesn’t try
  31. To wander. He’s an easy pig,
  32. Content to stay within his sty.
  33.  
  34. 4 Staffordshire Tamworth Red
  35. If you want to go away
  36. On a summer holiday
  37. And take your pig, make no mistake,
  38. A Tamworth Red’s the pig to take.
  39.  
  40. A pig whose skin is very fair
  41. Will use up all your Ambre Solaire,
  42. And need a hat, and cause concern,
  43. But Tamworths very seldom burn.
  44.  
  45. 5 Orkney Boar
  46. If you should meet an Orkney Boar
  47. A-roaming on an Orkney moor,
  48. Beware. This savage little porker
  49. May attack the English walker.
  50.  
  51. 6 Lincolnshire Curly Coat
  52. A pig of pigs. If free to scoff,
  53. He’ll seldom leave the feeding-trough,
  54. Expanding till he’s almost static
  55. And procreation’s problematic.
  56.  
  57. And that, I guess, is why the breed
  58. By now is very rare indeed.
  59.  
  60. 7 Gloucestershire Old Spot
  61. Walking Rorschach tests, Old Spots
  62. Have pure white skin with inky blots
  63. But do not show an interest
  64. In asking what the shapes suggest.
  65.  
  66. 8 Berkshire Prize Beauty
  67. Once the standard of perfection
  68. By which other pigs were judged –
  69. Lovely figure, great complexion
  70. Even when her face was smudged.
  71. Just imagine the dejection
  72. As her rivals’ owners trudged
  73. To fatstock show and prize inspection,
  74. Knowing she could not be budged.
  75.  
  76. 9 Old Glamorgan
  77. There isn’t very much to write –
  78. I only know he’s large and white.
  79.  
  80. 10 Dorset Gold Tip
  81. In Dorset in the days of old
  82. There lived a pig whose hide was gold –
  83. Friendly, beautiful, and charming,
  84. Unsuitable for modern farming.
  85. It can’t be helped. The world moves on
  86. And all the golden pigs are gone.

 Wendy Cope. If I Don’t Know. London: Faber & Faber (2001).

Strugnell’s* Sonnets (VI)

  1. Let me not to the marriage of true swine
  2. Admit impediments. With his big car
  3. He’s won your heart, and you have punctured mine.
  4. I have no spare; henceforth I’ll bear the scar.
  5. Since women are not worth the booze you buy them
  6. I dedicate myself to Higher Things.
  7. If men deride and sneer, I shall defy them
  8. And soar above Tulse Hill on poet’s wings —
  9. A brother to the thrush in Brockwell Park,
  10. Whose song, though sometimes drowned by rock guitars,
  11. Outlives their din. One day I’ll make my mark,
  12. Although I’m not from Ulster or from Mars,
  13. And when I’m published in some classy mag
  14. You’ll rue the day you scarpered in his Jag.

* This sonnet was attributed by Ms Cope to Jason Strugnell, the somewhat impressionable but always enthusiastic Bard of Tulse Hill.

 Wendy Cope. Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis. London: Faber and Faber (1986).

About the Poet:

Wendy Cope, United Kingdom, (b. 1945), is a poet and considered a classic English humorist, though her work can also often also take a more meditative tone. She earned a BA in history and trained as a teacher at St. Hilda’s college, Oxford. Cope taught in primary schools for many years before becoming a freelance writer in 1986 with the publishing of her first book of poetry, Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis (1986).

Cope has received a Cholmondeley Award and a Michael Braude Award for Light Verse from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2010, she was awarded an Order of the British Empire, and she is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Her archive (comprised of collected manuscripts, notebooks, emails and school reports) resides at the British Library. [DES-06/22]

Jason “Jake” Strugnell, England, (contemporary/deceased), is a fictional poet from Tulse Hill, in south London. He is a persona employed by Wendy Cope in her collection Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis (1986). Strugnell’s poems are poor imitations of the poems of his well known predecessors and contemporaries. He also wrote some Shakespearian sonnets bemoaning his fate as an unpublished bard.

Cope describes Strugnell as a hapless, rather unpleasant and obscure male poet, blithely unaware of his shortcomings, who lived on Tulse Hill and quite often worked on his poetry at the Upper Norwood Library. He was somewhat impressionable but always enthusiastic, earning the moniker, “Bard of Tulse Hill” and the (self-appointed) “Casanova of Tulse Hill”. [DES-06/22]

 • Biographies here are short. Yet all the poets presented have fascinating lives. And they have created a bountiful trough of treasures beyond these works. Please root on about those you enjoy! I hope you find something informative, meaningful or that provokes your further contemplation.

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