Selected Poems

by Sophie Hannah

Since publishing her first book, Sophie Hannah has been recognized as one of the most important poets writing in Britain. Chosen in 1999 by The Times as the 'New Writer to Watch' and by the Daily Telegraph as one of the 'Stars of the New Millenium', she has published five bestselling collections, and this is the only selection covering the breadth of her work.

Genres: Poetry

176 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2006

About the author

Sophie Hannah is an internationally bestselling writer of psychological crime fiction, published in 27 countries. In 2013, her latest novel, The Carrier, won the Crime Thriller of the Year Award at the Specsavers National Book Awards. Two of Sophie’s crime novels, The Point of Rescue and The Other Half Lives, have been adapted for television and appeared on ITV1 under the series title Case Sensitive in 2011 and 2012. In 2004, Sophie won first prize in the Daphne Du Maurier Festival Short Story Competition for her suspense story The Octopus Nest, which is now published in her first collection of short stories, The Fantastic Book of Everybody’s Secrets.

Sophie has also published five collections of poetry. Her fifth, Pessimism for Beginners, was shortlisted for the 2007 T S Eliot Award. Her poetry is studied at GCSE, A-level and degree level across the UK. From 1997 to 1999 she was Fellow Commoner in Creative Arts at Trinity College, Cambridge, and between 1999 and 2001 she was a fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford. She is forty-one and lives with her husband and children in Cambridge, where she is a Fellow Commoner at Lucy Cavendish College. She is currently working on a new challenge for the little grey cells of Hercule Poirot, Agatha Christie’s famous detective.

Reviews

[Alarie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I believe I’d enjoy a lot of Hannah’s poems if I came upon them individually, tucked between serious poems in a journal. Reading an entire book of humor poems just doesn’t appeal to me, even though I appreciate her craft (she’s a formalist). At different times she reminds me of Bridget Jones’s Diary, Dorothy Parker, Billy Collins, Roger McGough, Dr. Seuss, and Kay Ryan, but there was a sameness of sarcastic tone that became annoying, particular in the frequency of bad date/bad boyfriend humor.

My favorite poem in this collection is “View” about traveling by car or train with a killjoy. It begins

“I am not lonely. I pretend
that I am here alone.
I do not see your shuttered face
or hear your monotone.”

and ends

“...I see the things I see
and am no longer here with you
though you are here with me.

[Esther Huntington-Whiteley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Underwhelming.

I think I need to stop pretending that I like contemporary poetry.

[Hakon Soreide · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book that is very enjoyable to read, stylistically assured, Sophie Hannah having a far better grasp on the use of rhythm and rhyme than most poets since Modernism usurped the genre.

There is one issue, though, and that is that most of the pieces are lacking in those even more important hallmarks of true poetry: metaphor, imagery, and subtext; most of Hannah's pieces are simply light verse, expressing in a lyrical style something that feels devoid of deeper substance and density of potential meaning.

I think that specifically disqualifies most of them from being categorised as poems in the truest sense, and they are instead highly skilled pieces of text in the same category as adverts written in verse or children's stories similarly styled.

There is nothing wrong with that, if that is what you're after – and I've read few who do it better – but it's still not what I call poetry.

It's pretty, decorative, lyrically pleasing, but compared to what I consider poetry still the equivalent of a wall picture purchased at IKEA as opposed to what you find in an art gallery.

On occasion, when she tries deviating from the firmly established formulaic light-verse approach, attempting something that borders on poetry, it falls rather flat and fails to engage me, as if she's mastered light verse at the expense of understanding how the other kinds of poetic expressions work.

There are some exceptions to this generalised view, but they are far between and few.

So, it's good light verse mis-sold as poetry. Nice when you want to read without thinking too much or assigning meaning to what you read.

I think Sophie Hannah would make a good poet laureate some day. Though I have been rather critical in this review, that is meant as a compliment.

[Elise · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars | A humorous collection but nothing spectacular.

Poems I enjoyed:
Categories
Preventative Elegy
Fair to Say
The Mind I Lose
Soft-handed Man
The Bridging Line
Leaving and Leaving You
The Shadow Tree
View

[Annie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Sophie Hannah but I hate poetry 🤷🏼‍♀️

[Read with Demi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this collection of mostly bitter poetry. A great book to have in your bag to read while you wait in line.

[Hello · Rating 5 out of 5]

Found my new favourite poem - 'Preventative Elegy'
"Your death is not allowed" 😭

[Samantha (A Dream of Books) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This wasn't quite as good as some of Sophie Hannah's other collections of poems. The subject matter was more varied but I found that I didn't connect as well with these as I have done with her earlier work. However, saying that, I did have to laugh at the driving test poem. I can definitely relate!

[Tess · Rating 4 out of 5]

It really took me quite a few pages to get used to Sophie Hannah's style of poetry: It's very structured and it (nearly) always rhymes. Once I did, though, I loved it. Her poems are often funny, sometimes sweet or sharp and always seemed very real to me. I will be rereading this many times.