Collected Poems 1978-2003

by U.A. Fanthorpe

Genres: Poetry, Fiction

468 pages, Hardcover

First published March 31, 2005

About the author

Ursula Askham Fanthorpe (published as U. A. Fanthorpe) was an English poet. She was educated at St Catherine's School, Bramley in Surrey and at St Anne's College, Oxford, where she received a first-class degree in English language and literature, and subsequently taught English at Cheltenham Ladies' College for sixteen years. She then abandoned teaching for jobs as a secretary, receptionist and hospital clerk in Bristol - in her poems, she later remembered some of the patients for whose records she had been responsible.

Her first volume of poetry, Side Effects, was published in 1978. She was "Writer-in-Residence" at St Martin's College, Lancaster (now University of Cumbria)(1983–85), as well as Northern Arts Fellow at Durham and Newcastle Universities.

In 1987 Fanthorpe went freelance, giving readings around the country and occasionally abroad. In 1994 she was nominated for the post of Professor of Poetry at Oxford. Her nine collections of poems were published by Peterloo Poets. Her Collected Poems came out in 2005. Many of her poems are for two voices. In her readings the other voice is that of Bristol academic and teacher R.V. "Rosie" Bailey, Fanthorpe's life partner of 44 years. The couple co-wrote a collection of poems, From Me To You: Love Poems, that was published in 2007 by Enitharmon.

Reviews

[Colin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this collection of U. A. Fanthorpe’s poems written up to 2003 (an expanded collection was published after her death to include poems written after this book was published), is a reminder of what a great poet and observer of late twentieth century life she was. A relatively late starter - she was nearly fifty when her first book was published - she had a great deal of life experience to draw on, and many of her poems are firmly rooted in the domestic sphere and the world of work. Jobs as a teacher, examiner, and, particularly, as a receptionist in a hospital neurology department provided the inspiration for much of her most personal and moving work. She was also a remarkable and tender love poet, exemplified most movingly be her poem of domestic happiness, Atlas: ‘There is a kind of love called maintenance/Which stores the WD40 and knows when to use it/Which checks the insurance, and doesn’t forget/The milkman; which remembers to plant bulbs;/Which answers letters; which knows the way/The money goes…which upholds/The permanently ricketty elaborate/Structures of living…’