I can’t remember why I reserved this book from the library – I think I saw it in the catalogue as a new book and thought I would try it. I quite like poetry, I just don’t read much of it.

This is a very small book with a few poems in it so a quick read although I have read some of the poems several times. The Orange seems to be the poem most written about by the reviewers in the collection and I did identify with it: the feeling when something normal and everyday is enjoyed and the touch that has on the rest of the day.

And that orange, it made me so happy,

As ordinary things often do

Just lately.

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But I prefer poems like Loss

The day he moved out was terrible –

That evening she went through hell.

His absence wasn’t a problem

But the corkscrew had gone as well.

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because of the wit that the book cover says Cope is so famous for.

The poems span a life with a lover, the break up and then being with someone else, the joys of not having to go out but stay in and be ‘boring’. They then move on to Christmas and being left out at school.

They didn’t really do much for me.