Silly Little Country

Sophie Hannah my new John Betjeman?

Norm turned me on some time ago to a) Sophie Hannah's poems, and b) Sophie Hannah's taste in poems. I finally bit a bullet and ordered some of Sophie Hannah's work. It is SO much fun! I am not sure she will like the comparison, but the last time I hit a new poet who gave me so much a) fun, b) wit, and c) Englishness, it was John Betjeman. She gives me the same exhiliration he did 30 years ago.

Here is a very nice piece of work (which I may have to take down if it is identified as violating copyright) - it is utterly the spirit of how she writes (and keeps me giggling).

Now and Then

'Now that I'm fifty-seven,'
My mother used to say,
'Why should I waste a minute?
Why should I waste a day

Doing the things I ought to
Simply because I should?
Now that I'm fifty-seven
I'm done with that for good.'

But now and then I'd catch her
Trapped in some thankless chore
Just as she might have been at
Fifty-three or fifty-four

And I would want to say to her
(And have to bite my tongue)
That if you mean to learn a skill
It's well worth starting young

And so, to make sure I'm in time
For fifty, I've begun
To do exactly as I please
Now that I'm thirty-one.


P.S. I am also reading her first thriller, and its premiss is brilliant; a mother arrives home and decides that the baby in the cot is NOT her child. I am expecting a great ride ahead.

posted by Alan Adamson @ 7:12 PM