Side effects

by U.A. Fanthorpe

Genres: Poetry

64 pages, Paperback

First published April 24, 1986

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

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the first volume of Ursula Fanthorpe's poetry I ever read and I remember scoffing it down almost in one gulp the first time. The cover shows the Uccello painting of ' George and the Dragon ' and the poem Fanthorpe wrote to ' describe ' this picture lies underneath it. Its wonderful and indeed it was her humour here and ' non-poetic ' language that really made me realize that it was perfectly acceptable for me to imagine there might be genuine poetry in myself. Her humanity and simplicity and yet incredible depth in amidst all of that normality is inspiring in so many ways. I wrote a poem, inspired by her example, on Titian's beautiful 'The Death of Actaeon'. No-one has ever seen mine but I know its there and all because of this wonderful poet. There is another heart-breaking poem called ' Only a small death ', in amidst so many piercingly good poems this one astounds me. The marvel of her poetry for me is her use of the normal to express the profound, her use of the simple to tease out the complex.

[David Campton · Rating 4.5 out of 5]

When I previously encountered pieces by U.A. Fanthorpe in other anthologies I generally found them to be interesting and frequently funny, so I was delighted recently to come across this first collection of hers, and two others in a National Trust second hand book shop (I suspect she would have approved and perhaps written a poem about it). My delight was not diminished in reading this. Her ability to look sideways at the ordinary things of life, and indeed to look beyond them, clearly informed by her training in classical and English literature, gives a real depth to her poems, leavened by her wry sense of humour. When then applied to her chosen working context as a clerk in a hospital, her vantage point allows her to offer a humanity to those who it might be possible to reduce to a collection of symptoms or a reference number on a file

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not usually a poetry person, but the title poem has lodged itself in my head and won't leave.