Collected Poems

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WALCOTT PRIZE
'Her poetry stands unsurpassed in its popularity and technical accomplishment - there's no better contemporary writer of forms such as the triolet - and in the wit, acuity and seriousness of purpose with which she shows us what it is to be human.' Guardian
This volume comprises the full poetic works of one of our wittiest, most beloved writers, and includes many previously uncollected poems.
When Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis was published in 1986, Wendy Cope became that rarest of creatures: a celebrated poet who was also a best-seller. Her artful combination of insight and wit made an extraordinary impact in poems that cocked a gentle snook at the pomposity of a literary world hitherto dominated by men.
Through four further collections, Cope has continued to delight her readers while finding a whole new generation of enthusiasts when her poem 'The Orange' went viral. Together these poems catalogue the desires and fears that underlie our ordinary existences - love and heartbreak, disappointment and a hard-won capacity to find happiness, even if only in the form of a poem.. In their profound attention to and encapsulation of the everyday, these poems serve to make our own lives the more remarkable and memorable. Collected Poems celebrates a lifetime's achievement by a poet who has been original and distinctive from the very start, and provides the perfect accompaniment to the trials, tribulations and joys of our all too human lives.
This collection also features Nick Garland's original illustrations for The River Girl (1991).
'Her poetry stands unsurpassed in its popularity and technical accomplishment - there's no better contemporary writer of forms such as the triolet - and in the wit, acuity and seriousness of purpose with which she shows us what it is to be human.' Rishi Dastidar, Guardian
'We can love Wendy Cope's words . . . for the rhymes they reveal but also for the sad truths they speak.' Adam Gopnik, New Yorker
'One has to go back to Byron to find a poet as consistently witty, wide-ranging and technically outstanding as Cope.' Los Angeles Review of Books
'We need not wonder at Wendy Cope's continued, wide appeal. She writes poems that people want to read, and this is how poems survive.' Literary Review
'Wit and heart? Cope's fans should rest assured there are enough gems here with both.' Telegraph
'Wendy Cope's real strength lies not in charm or insight (she has buckets of both) but in the pitch-perfect exactitude of her writing.' Sunday Times
'Her poems are moving, memorable, funny, clever; they alert readers to what it means to be human.' PN Review
'Any book of [Cope's] work is a national treasure chest ... her work has, with care and precision, given us pathways to negotiate the world ... Her Collected Poems is as human as an embrace.' Ian McMillan, BBC Radio 4's The Verb

Wendy Cope was born in Erith, Kent. After university she worked for fifteen years as a primary-school teacher in London. In 1987 she received a Cholmondeley Award for poetry and in 1995 the American Academy of Arts and Letters Michael Braude Award. The Orange and other poems was published in 2023.