Beginner's Luck

by U.A. Fanthorpe, R. V. Bailey (Editor)

When she died, in 2009, Anthony Thwaite described U.A. Fanthorpe as a 'smiling subversive with a voice like bird-song'. An encouraging example to all late developers, this particular bird's voice took its time: she didn't become a poet until she was 45. But these examples of her very earliest work show the latent mastery and the rapid development of the craft that would bring her wide critical acclaim and an affectionate general readership. The mysteries of the trade gradually reveal themselves as rooted in a wide and uncensored range of subject-matter, a life-time's love of words, and an intuitive grasp of the mechanics of form and voice. Recognising her role so late, she was a woman in a hurry; there wasn't time for self-consciousness or grandiose notions of 'vocation'. 'A poet,' she said, 'is a smuggler. He imports things clandestinely which are not supposed to have got through the customs.' Poetry 'happened to me', she would say. Her job? To listen, to pass it on.

Genres: Poetry

113 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 20, 2019

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

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

There was something thrilling about this collection of UA Fanthorpe's early poems and I don't know if that is despite or because of the superficial ordinariness yet rich nature of her life, leaving English teaching ['Gingerbread Maker'] and working as a hospital receptionist. My own intimate experiences of working in hospitals being in the 1980s I find her 1970s poems unnerving in their insider insights.

I enjoyed her 'Rites of Passage' about how cats do not experience adolescence, despite disagreeing vehemently. It's not a book of animal poems but Boarding Kennels is heartbreaking. 'Woman's World' on the contents of magazine racks, 'Miss Morris' on the realities of resuscitation, 'Poem for Temps' (what it says), 'O and M study: the boatman' about concerns about the proper working conditions and pension arrangements of the most famous of ferrymen... so many gems. I wondered about 'The brides of Christ' and wondered if her thoughts were informed more by the then unthinkability of being able to marry than her feelings on marriage.

Her editor here, RV Bailey describes a 'dog's dinner' - well it is a very tasty one.