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U.A. Fanthorpe (UAF) was Head of English, at Cheltenham Ladies’ College but later worked as a receptionist in a neuro-psychiatric hospital. In 1988 she was made Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and has since been awarded a number of fellowships, honorary doctorates etc. In 1994 she was the first woman in 315 years to be nominated for the post of Oxford Professor of Poetry and in 1999 was a leading contender for the post of Poet Laureate. She was awarded a CBE for services to poetry in 2001 and the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2003.

R.V. Bailey (RVB), a reviewer for many poetry magazines, has had a rich and varied career from cafeteria assistant to teacher, counsellor and lecturer, before finally retiring as Director of
Undergraduate Courses in Humanities at the University of the West of England. The other voice in poetry recordings by, and readings with, U.A. Fanthorpe, Peterloo published her first collection
Marking Time in 2004.

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ROC: Does your poetry reflect contemporary society?

UAF / RVB: No, not especially for either of us. Neither of us feels we belong to society – though it’s nice to be made welcome and sometimes to be asked for a poem.

ROC: Were you influenced by the ‘feminist revolution’ of the seventies?

UAF: No. I was working in a hospital at the time, and the two classes of people in my mind were not men / women, but patients / non-patients. My writing is more affected by historical events: I see the same patterns repeating, patterns of violence, courage, generosity. However, having been around for a long time it’s good to belong to a time when women’s poetry is taken seriously. It’s interesting to have the long perspective of age.

RVB: Not in the least. Current events are always there in the mind, but they don’t surface straightforwardly in the poems.

ROC: Did the feminist movement further today’s revolution against a traditionally patriarchal literature scene?

UAF / RVB: Such a ‘revolution’ – if that’s the word – began some time ago (e.g. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Christina Rosetti, Emily Dickinson, Emily Brontë et al). There were practical problems about being published and about being seriously reviewed, but that’s not the same thing as a revolution.

ROC: There are many ‘eras’ in literature – modernist/post-modernist etc. Do you belong to any particular ‘school’ or occupy any particular ‘poetic landscape’?

UAF / RVB: C20 ‘Schools’ are invented by critics to make literature look tidy. They exist largely in the eye of the student, and are useful for examination purposes. Such terms offer an excuse for not looking properly at individual writers.

RVB: If I see myself as anything in the landscape at all, it is as a rather remote corner of the traditionalist landscape.

ROC: Shakespeare et al influenced your writing but could you name one particular poet who inspired you?

UAF: Impossible to answer but I would particularly mention Browning, because he’s interested in people, and is so inventive, perceptive, non-judgmental; and because his style is endlessly alive.

RVB: I’d find it almost impossible to specify particular poets, though I’d certainly mention (among earlier poets) Kipling because of his sympathy with the outsider and the underdog, his unfailing ear for how people speak (or spoke), his accessibility, his deep sadness and his astonishing versatility.

ROC: Poetry is often charged with being elitist. Is this justified? Is there a place for elitism in poetry?

UAF / RVB: Absolutely! The elite means, simply, the best – it’s not the equivalent of ‘snobbish’. So let’s have more of it in poetry. There’s a concealed anxiety here (we think), about the accessibility of poetry and its perceived incomprehensibility, and that’s another matter entirely. There’s a difference between what people can hear and take in at a poetry reading, where they are often, so to speak, in a receptive frame of mind, and the difficulty they experience – or their reluctance to spend time in – actually reading poems on the page. Possibly one of the most ‘elite’ poets (in that ‘classy’ sense) was Betjeman – and yet he was hugely popular and accessible.

ROC: What would be your tips on how to develop as a poet, please?

UAF: Keep alert, ears and eyes wide open. And never forget you have all of the infinite resources of the English language at your disposal.

RVB: Find a sympathetic literate friend you can share work with. Don’t be too easily satisfied with what you write. And never give up.

ROC: Thank you.
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