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Sophie Hannah

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Herausgeber: Carcanet Poetry
Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
Sprache: Englisch
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

Sophie Hannah is one of Britain's best-loved poets, a disarmingly witty, sharp-eyed chronicler of everyday life and its peculiarities. Her writing ranges across poetry, short fiction, children's literature, works of translation, and edited anthologies, including the 2014 The Poetry of Sex. She is also an internationally bestselling author of psychological crime fiction, and has written the first new Hercule Poirot novel to be authorised by the Agatha Christie estate. This book bring together for the first time all of Hannah's previous collection of verse, drawing on over 20 years of writing; accompanied by 27 new and uncollected poems, it will appeal to both the familiar reader and those discovering her work for the first time.

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Leseprobe

SOPHIE HANNAH

Marrying the Ugly Millionaire

New and Collected Poems

for Dan, Phoebe, Guy and Brewster, with love

Acknowledgements

‘If You Were Standing Where His Shadow Fell’ was commissioned for and first published in Thirteen Poems of Revenge (Candlestick Press). Some of the other new poems were first published in PN Review. ‘Unbalanced’ was first published in the The Fountain, the quarterly magazine of Trinity College, Cambridge

New Poems

Unbalanced

The Whole World Knows

Hodder Sales Conference

Gratitude

The Little Cushion and the Empty Chair

The Dalai Lama on Twitter

I Cannot In All Conscience Share a Platform With The Train

The Storming

The One Who Should Be Crying

Multiple Warning Survivors Anonymous

Two Poems about the Alternative Voting System (AV)

A Limerick

A Haiku

A Christmas Truce

Frumpy Secret

If You Were Standing Where His Shadow Fell

Frequently Asked Questions

Growing Up Fast

Secondary Gain

Moderation

Crowd Pleaser

New Leaf

Let’s

Party Wall

Injustice

A Besooned Thank-You

Not Miss Havisham

Risk a Verse

FromEarly Bird Blues

Cooking Lessons

Useless

Thoughts on a Tree

The Floozy in the Jacuzzi

Breaking Free

Townie

Multiple Choice

The Burden

No Wonder

FromSecond Helping of Your Heart

Ballade

Incompetence

Something You Should Know

The Lazy Student’s Song

The Twinkliness of Stars

The Pink Egg Dances

The Sort of Film I Hate

Nightmare

Mind the Gap

Peculiar Praise

The Hero and the Girl Next Door

Soft Companion

Summary of a Western

Symptoms

The Affair

Six Sonnets

When I Am Famous

Wrong Again

The Philanderer’s Ansaphone Message

A Shallow End

One-Track Mind

A Fairly Universal Set

Before Sherratt & Hughes Became Waterstone’s

Two-Headed Dog Street

The Gift

Mad Queen Hospital for Electrifying the Heart

Minding his Boots

Something Coming

A Day Too Late

Trainers All Turn Grey

Another Filling

Introducing Vanity

Second Helping of Your Heart

For the Following Reasons

Two Rondels

The End of Love

More Trouble Than Fun

Call Yourself a Poet

Amusing Myself

Differences

The Answer

No Competition

Friends Again

The Mystery of the Missing

Miracles Start like This

Nostalgia

Two Love Poems

Poem for a Valentine Card

Red Mist

Early Bird Blues

Your Street Again

Three Short Poems

A Soul

New Poems

Unbalanced

‘Cambridge has a very unbalanced demographic – there’s an unnaturally high concentration of intelligent people.’

There is a lot that’s wrong with Cambridge, yes:

Houses are too expensive and too thin,

The Clifton Leisure Park is nothing less

Than standing proof that a grave mortal sin

Can be committed by a multiscreen

Cinema allied with a Travelodge.

A Cambridge street is no idyllic scene:

Often, on King’s Parade, I have to dodge

Tourists who wish to bash me in the face

With their huge cameras. I contain my rage,

Remind myself that I don’t own the place –

I must play nice and share my Chronophage,

And thank my stars. Hemmed in by Hills Road traffic,

I savour the unbalanced demographic.

The Whole World Knows

I wasn’t going to say this, but I will:

The Bourne Identity is on TV.

Hills Road is flat and nowhere near a hill.

I often wish that Woodlands Surgery

Would hire Greg House and his long-suffering team:

Foreman, Chase, Cuddy, Cameron, Wilson too.

Don’t tell me it’s an unrealistic dream.

They don’t exist, no, but the actors do

So something could be done, presumably

(Though I’ve heard Chase and Cameron make a bid

For freedom at the end of Season 3).

I wasn’t going to say that but I did.

I wasn’t going to say this but I will.

We hear that line and know what to expect:

Words that will shrivel us and drive a chill

Through our warm hearts. Why bother to protect

Someone as reckless/ignorant/deranged

As your grim self? You’ve asked for trouble now.

You started this. I’d tactfully arranged

To swallow my disgust, avoid a row,

Spare your frail ego all my killer blows,

But since your disrespect is off the grid

You can take this:you’re scum. The whole world knows.

I wasn’t going to say that but I did.

The introduction’s part of the attack:

Protection offered only when withdrawn.

Ought I to want the lesser insult back?

Oh, for our hey-day, when you hid your scorn!

Anyway, I intend to steal your line,

Use it to herald harmless observations,

Hopes, sometimes dreams. I’m turning it benign.

I adore living close to railway stations!

Less than five minutes’ walk to catch the train!

I wasn’t going to say this but I will,

Because I feel like sharing an inane

Fact with a friend. Reader, you fit the bill.

My favourite painting cost me forty quid!

Here’s looking at spontaneous outbursts, kid.

I wasn’t going to say that, but I did.

Hodder Sales Conference

for Robyn Young, unsurprisingly

I stayed up far too late last night

With Robyn Young, again.

This morning, I don’t feel quite right.

We stayed up drinking all last night.

There we both were at dawn’s first light

Discussing love and men.

I stayed up far too late last night

With Robyn Young, again.

You’d think we had no books to write.

All those who left at ten

Woke up this morning feeling bright.

Perhaps they’d like our books to write.

My brain feels like it’s had a fight.

Now for some Nurofen.

We stayed up drinking all last night.

Mustn’t do that again.

Gratitude

Thank you so much for sending back my scarf!

Oh, right. You’re welcome. Er...you couldn’t just go and say thank you to my wife, could you? She was a bit upset that you didn’t send a card at the time.

(To wife) Thank you so much for sending back my scarf! I meant to write and thank you, but I probably forgot...

Yes. You did.

I left my scarf behind. You sent it on.

I meant to buy and send a Thank You card

But I forgot, and soon the year was gone

And the year after that. My life was hard

In those two years, not in a tragic sense –

Not trapped, like Chilean miners, underground

Nor starved behind a grim high-voltage fence –

Hard in an arty way: the endless round

Of thriller panels, signings, foreign tours,

Mixed in with children’s homework, costumes, lice.

I’ll show you my list if you’ll show me yours.

Mine’s longer. Take your pick: I’m either nice

And ludicrously busy, or a bitch

Who takes good deeds for granted, doesn’t care.

Here, have the stupid scarf back. Stitch by stitch,

Unpick, unpick. My neck prefers cold air.

The Little Cushion and the Empty Chair

I’m paying you to listen and I’m paying you to care.

I don’t have many problems. Well, let’s say I have my share.

Before we start this therapy, I think it would be fair

To warn you of my limits. You will need to be aware:

I cannot beat a cushion or accuse an empty chair.

The cushion’s looking innocent. It’s recently been plumped.

I’m having plaguing visions of it battered, torn and slumped.

Yes, it’s inanimate and therefore happy to be thumped.

I’m sure it has been, many times – by the depressed, the dumped,

The discombobulated. I’ll abstain. Say if you’re stumped –

I’ll understand. I’m stumped myself. I ought to know the drill.

It’s therapy. Why won’t my mind co-operate and fill

Your empty chair with someone who ideally fits the bill?

It’s not that I don’t want to; I entirely lack the skill.

I can’t berate a chair. I never could. I never will.

I also can’t write letters that I’m never going to send.

(Might as well tell you now – you’re going to find out in the end.)

Lies I do well, but I cannot cathartically pretend,

Which has a happy side effect that I did not intend:

The chair thinks I’m all right. The little cushion is my friend.

The Dalai Lama on Twitter

We do as much harm to ourselves and to others when we take offence as when we give offence.

I am following the Dalai Lama on Twitter

But the Dalai Lama is not yet following me.

That’s fine. Things are as they are. I do not feel bitter.

Enlightenment is his thing. Reciprocity?

Not so much. He is a spiritual big-hitter

And I write detective novels. It’s easy to see

Why I’m following the Dalai Lama on Twitter

And the Dalai Lama is not yet following me.

He doesn’t know how often I pick up litter,

How many signed books I have given away for free,

Not to Russell Brand, Wayne Rooney or Gary Glitter

But as raffle prizes for this or that charity,

And since I would hate to think of myself as a quitter –

Because I, at least, know it isn’t all about me –

I am following the Dalai Lama on Twitter

Even though he is self-absorbed to the nth degree.

You’d think a sage of his rank would know about karma,

About courtesy, and the decent thing to do.

Oh, follow me, follow me, follow me, Dalai Lama!

I’m an expert on House MD and crime fiction too.

I wouldn’t DM you outlandish theories of Dharma

Or make you retweet my latest good review.

I am following, on Twitter, the Dalai Lama

But the Dalai Lama has not thought to follow me too.

(PS – Eckhart Tolle, this also applies to you.)

I Cannot In All Conscience Share a Platform With The Train

I cannot in all conscience share a platform with the train.

It’s always overheated and refuses to explain.

Instead it scuttles off, as cowards do, to Audley End.

Condemn and shun the train or I’ll no longer be your friend.

It isn’t just the heat. You heard the buffet car admit

It has sold out of crisps. And that is not the worst of it.

The loos (the buffet’s allies) smell of hamsters, and the bloke

Who checked our tickets laughed – no doubt at an offensive joke.

Don’t tell me cars and planes pollute the air with noxious fumes.

Yes, the Titanic stashed the rich and poor in separate rooms.

Are you suggesting I’m to blame? Then why the veiled attack?

My point is that this train should have a better luggage rack –

One that would take my weight but not make stripe marks on my bum.

Before I disembark, I challenge everyone to come

And check my reputation for that nonexistent stain.

I cannot in all conscience share a platform with the train.

The Storming

There are differences, one assumes,

between us and the people we know who storm out of rooms,

sometimes crying, but not every time;

sometimes muttering, sometimes an angry marching mime

is their exit mode. Where do they go,

all those people who storm out of rooms? Will we ever know?

Are there sandwiches there, and a flask

of hot tea? We won’t find out if we never ask.

Once they’ve fled the provoking scene,

do they all get together somewhere? Do they reconvene

in a basement, an attic, a flat?

Do they also reserve the right to storm out of that,

and if so, do they take turns to storm

or link arms and desert en masse in a furious swarm,

leaving nobody in their wake?

Would there be any point in the storming, for nobody’s sake?

There are differences, one fears,

between us and the people who storm out of rooms in tears,

as if, having ruined it all

in the snug, they imagine they’ll be better off in the hall,

and that anyone left in a chair

automatically gets to be wrong and to blame and unfair,

unaware of how bad stormers feel,

and quite lacking in feelings themselves. That is part of the deal.

Notice how I don’t leap to my feet,

how I nestle in cushions and curl myself into my seat.

Leave at once for the moral high ground.

I’ll stay here by the fire, mocking storms and just lounging around.

The One Who Should Be Crying

What are you crying for?

I’m the one who should be crying.

What are you writing a poem called

The One Who Should Be Crying for?

I’m the one who should be writing a poem

called Emotions Must Be Earned

And Exchanged, Like Vouchers, For Something Worth Having, Like Rules.

What are you dreaming about me for?

I have never staged a show trial in a hall

while you signed your books in a cramped room next door.

I’m not responsible for what you dream about.

I’ve forced your authentic self into hiding? Prove it,

or this conversation ends here.

Multiple Warning Survivors Anonymous

Please don’t warn me of things that won’t happen,

Like: the man who just sold me some land

Might in fact have a vat

Of the plague in his hat

And a new black death minutely planned.

Please don’t mention unlikely disasters

That you think I’d be wise to avoid:

Getting stalked in a tent,

Or inhaling cement...

Yes, my life could be swiftly destroyed

But it won’t be, so no need to summon

Your great ally, the spectre of doom –

Babies, injured or dead!

Dearest friend, axe in head! –

While I’m safe, sitting still in a room.

I am sure I’ll avoid strangulation

By a dangling invisible thread,

But my life’s in bad shape

If I cannot escape

From these horrors you plant in my head.

Can I tell you what I think is likely?

And I hope this is not out of line:

Yes, there is a small chance

I’ll be stabbed by Charles Dance

But I strongly suspect I’ll be fine,

Or I would be, if only you’d zip it.

No, I won’t wear a bullet-proof vest

When I go to Ikea.

Don’t troll me with fear.

Here’s a warning: just give it a rest

Or I’ll certainly spend most of Sunday

Thinking you’re an assiduous scourge –

Sure as peas grow in pods.

Please consider those odds

When you next feel the dread-warning urge.

If one day I am crushed by a hippo

Then my agent will give you a ring.

If you like you can mourn me,

But please, please – don’t warn me.

Your warning’s my only bad thing.

Two Poems about the Alternative Voting System (AV)

1) A LIMERICK

‘Person X is my choice number one,

And my second choice...’

‘Don’t jump the gun!

Person X is still in. Wait, he’s out and can’t win.’

‘So my second choice...’

‘Sorry, we’re done.’

2) A HAIKU

1,2. 1,2,3.

1,2,3,4. 1,2,3.

1,2. 1,2. 1.

A Christmas Truce

What would I like for Christmas?

A close friend wants to know.

Perfume? A clock? A spa day?

Some tickets for a show?

‘I need ideas by Monday,’

She huffs, as if I’m not

Sufficiently respectful

Of her present-buying slot,

Which will expire by Tuesday,

Her harried tone implies.

Art books? Posh wine? New teapot?

Brainstorm! Prioritise!

What do I want for Christmas?

I want you not to ask.

I’d rather get no gifts at all

Than be assigned the task

Of emailing a wish list

(One I must first create)

To all my friends and family

Before a certain date.

Can I propose a Christmas truce

To make my dreams come true?

Create no work for me and I’ll

Create no work for you.

I’ve got enough possessions –

Shoes, coats, a diamond ring –

I want not to be asked to do

A time-consuming thing.

Yes, that’s a proper present –

Abstract, but no less real.

What do you mean it seems as if

I don’t care how you feel?

ALL RIGHT! I’ll have a teapot.

What? Then wrap it in a fleece.

Yes, I will ring to say it got here

Safely, in one piece.

Frumpy Secret

I have a frumpy secret,

Too stupid to withhold.

It’s practical, it’s legal,

And it must not be told.

I have been doing something

I’m not supposed to do,

So everyday, so humdrum,

You’d nod off if you knew.

It lacks the haggard glamour

That ought to go with sin.

It’s almost as dramatic

As emptying the bin

And yet, for crazy reasons

That I cannot explain

Without offending someone,

I’m stuck with this insane

And uninspiring secret

I’ve no desire to keep.

No, really. No, you wouldn’t.

I can’t. Go back to sleep.

If You Were Standing Where His Shadow Fell

The tyrant’s favourite chocolates are Maltesers.

We roll them at his toes, surround his feet.

They drop through grates; we pluck them out with tweezers.

He sulks. They are too round and brown and sweet.

The tyrant thinks a soppy armadillo

would make an ideal pet: tough shell, limp heart.

He keeps a doodle underneath his pillow.

The rest is down to us. He’s done his part;

we have to find it, buy it, love it, feed it,

teach it that we’re its slaves, ignore the swell

of indignation, since we’ll never need it.

If you were standing where his shadow fell

you’d willingly succumb to his distortions.

You’d contemplate revenge, then rule it out.

He’s living what he’s earned, in hefty portions:

each day, each year. Oh, he is in no doubt

that we confide in lamps, bond with umbrellas,

in preference to him. This is our fault,

or so he thinks, confining us to cellars.

He’ll remain unaware. Exalt! Exalt

when he releases you; embrace the terror

of his renewed attack before too long.

For your sake and for his, don’t make the error

of showing him he’s all the bad and wrong.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Is the lying the point, or are the disappearances the point?

2. Do you worry about being found out?

3. Or do you have an enormous trust fund, so it doesn’t really matter?

4. Why don’t you tell everyone the same story?

5. Or would that be as tedious as telling the truth?

6. If you found out that I’d started lying to you, would you mind?

7. Do you secretly want to get caught?

8. Would you consider making an exception for books? Never lie about which ones you like or dislike? Never say you’ve read ones that you haven’t?

9. Is it weird that if you answered ‘yes’ to question 8, I’d forgive you the rest?

10. Do you know that I know?

11. What’s your email password? I won’t use it, I promise. I’m only asking because Steven Spielberg said he’d never play badminton with me again if I didn’t.

Growing Up Fast

Children grow up so madly fast.

My daughter, not yet eight,

Wants to know when a boyfriend will

Invite her on a date.

I’m all in favour of the trend.

At this rate, when she’s ten

She will discover herbal tea

And Monarch of the Glen

And snuggly early nights with books.

Her drug-fuelled nightclub phase

Will be behind her (finished in

A record seven days,

Containing one ‘I hate you’, one

‘God, that is so unfair’.)

By twelve, she’ll love my killjoy streak

Because it proves I care,

By thirteen she’ll have realised

She must suspect and doubt

Everything I have ever said.

At fourteen, she’ll move out,

Find an alternative world view,

Forgive the gaping flaw

In mine for what it put her through,

And then she’ll be mature.

Secondary Gain

If I have lost the sun, then I will need to keep the moon.

It’s in the sky for now, but I’ll collect it some time soon.

The universe has set to work without consulting me.

I will not let what can’t be changed become my enemy –

That’s because I’m a person who’s determined to succeed.

I’ll never say in public that I strongly disagreed,

Or that I fear the universe is a deranged buffoon,

And in return the universe will hand me down the moon.

I’ve given this some thought: the moon may still stay up all night.

It may continue to be round, high above ground, and white.

It must not be more like the sun than like a friend of mine.

It must decide that everything about me suits it fine.

When people try to tell me it’s a crazy thing I’ve done,

I plan to turn on them and scream, ‘All right, then – where’s the sun?’

I’m proud to be the fool who’ll never make the moon lie flat.

Also, I’m not the biggest fool. The universe is that.

Moderation

All of the things you never heard,

Things that I wish I’d said,

Can be reduced to just one word

That didn’t leave my head

But sits, as if afraid to try,

On an embargoed shelf

Of vital messages that I

Sent only to myself

So I could stamp them unexpressed

And file them out of sight

In order that they pass the test

Of proving I’m polite,

That I can stand before a crowd

And still remain unseen

And speak a list of clues out loud –

Not half of what I mean –

That will be half misunderstood,

That listeners will recall

As safe, in that they did no good

For anyone at all.

Crowd Pleaser

‘Are you here for the Milne Craig event?’

Asked the girl on reception last night,

So I made a vague noise of assent

Since I thought she’d be pleased to be right,

Though this made things quite tricky, because

I was now set to gatecrash a do

At which no one would know who I was,

Populated by no one I knew.

The receptionist saw my perplexed

And embarrassed expression, and said

Just the words that I hoped she’d say next:

‘Or are you for the book thing instead?’

‘Yes, the book thing.’ I beamed. ‘Clever you.’

She was right once again. All was fine

And I added myself to the queue

For the bash that was rightfully mine,

And I worried about my bizarre,

Decades-old and irrational fear

Of explaining how I think things are,

When some people might not want to hear,

When it might cause a frown or a stir

If my words or my views are too strong.

Someone tell me, so I can concur:

Sometimes I’m right, and others are wrong.

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Marrying the Ugly Millionaire E-Book

Sophie Hannah

Marrying the Ugly Millionaire

New and Collected Poems

Acknowledgements

Contents

New Poems

Unbalanced

The Whole World Knows

Hodder Sales Conference

Gratitude

The Little Cushion and the Empty Chair

The Dalai Lama on Twitter

I Cannot In All Conscience Share a Platform With The Train

The Storming

The One Who Should Be Crying

Multiple Warning Survivors Anonymous

Two Poems about the Alternative Voting System (AV)

A Christmas Truce

Frumpy Secret

If You Were Standing Where His Shadow Fell

Frequently Asked Questions

Growing Up Fast

Secondary Gain

Moderation

Crowd Pleaser