DURHAM LITERATURE FESTIVAL 2000

 

UA FANTHORPE

UA Fanthorpe is one of England’s best, most popular, and prolific poets, renowned for her entertaining and moving readings. She was the first woman ever to be nominated for the post of Oxford Professor of Poetry.

"U.A Fanthorpe is a national treasure. A new book from her is always a unique pleasure to be savoured for its truth, disconcerting obliiqueness and even more disconcerting directness. Safe as Houses is no exception. The ambiguity of the title cliché – in the hands of someone with the nerve of Fanthorpe, with her masterly tone – promises poetry rooted in the real world and in ordinary language. Yes. But as moving as they are ‘simple’, as disturbing as they are funny."

Liz Lochhead

‘One of England’s most consistently engaging poets.’

Carol Ann Duffy

‘Fanthorpe is a poet of real importance. She is shrewd, intelligent, imaginatively alert, technically adroit and emotionally appealing: a writer who can both edify and entertain.’

The Scotsman

 

 

Painter and Poet

Watch the painter, children.

The painter is painting himself.

Palette enfisted, aloft; brush brandished.

There are men watching the painter painting,

Children, The spectacled one with the beard

Is saying Magnificent! A touch of sfumato there!

O, a very good investment, gentlemen. You can’t go wrong,

Financially speaking, when the artist has used

So much technique. There! Did you see how he stippled?

My advice is, certainly purchase. Always a market

For work of this kind. The painter listens, children,

And smiles a banker’s smile. He does

A spot more impasting.

Now, children, the poet. He is less exciting.

All he brandishes is a ball-point,

Which he plays with on unastonishing paper.

See him unload his disorganised wordhoard,

Children, as he sits alone. No one comes

To admire, or commission. Having only

Himself to please, he tinkers at pleasing himself.

Watch silently now as that metaphor

Fans slowly out, like a fin from the sea.

Did you notice him then, secret and shy as an otter,

Transferring an epithet? See that artless adverb

Mutate into a pun! And now – O children,

Keep very quiet – he is inserting a verb!

A cryptic cipher, for friends’ eyes only, he splices

Into his work, not guessing that what he writes

Will turn into a text, a set text,

Children; nor that you will think

He committed it deliberately to hurt you.

Invest in the painter, children; as for the poet,

Bad luck is catching. I should steer clear.