A Minor Role - interesting notes on the poet

U.A. Fanthorpe’s death in 2009 was felt as a genuine loss by the many fans of her cleareyed,

humane poems, including Carol Ann Duffy who described her as ‘an unofficial,

deeply loved laureate’.

U.A. Fanthorpe (b. 1929) spent her earliest years in Kent. She attended St Anne’s

College Oxford, afterwards becoming a teacher and ultimately head of English at

Cheltenham Ladies’ College. However, she only began writing when she turned her back

on her teaching career to become a receptionist at a psychiatric hospital, where her

observation of the ‘strange specialness’ of the patients provided the inspiration for her

first book, Side Effects (Peterloo Poets, 1978).

Following that relatively late start, Fanthorpe was prolific, producing nine full-length

collections, including the Forward Prize-nominated Safe as Houses (Peterloo Poets, 1995)

and the Poetry Book Society Recommendation Consequences (Peterloo Poets, 2000).

She was awarded a CBE in 2001 and the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2003.

Talking of her war-time childhood, Fanthorpe said, ‘I think it's important not to run

away’, and on the surface her poetry seems to encapsulate those traditional, stoic

English values we associate with the period. Certainly England and Englishness are

central themes in her work, but such a reading misses the wit and sly debunking of

national myth which mark Fanthorpe's sensibility.

MapWoman - mini homework for Tuesday

Four to five sentences for each of the questions below, please.

Focus on clear, accurate analysis.

1) Analyse the first stanza closely as it contains many of the stylistic features which are

maintained throughout the poem. Identify these and discuss how they affect the tone

and momentum of the poem.

2) What techniques does the poet use to make the surreal situation convincing?

3) Look at images and modes of travel in the poem. What do these suggest about the

woman’s past and her attitude towards it?

4) Think about the town which is mapped onto the woman’s body. What kind of a place is

it? What words would you use to describe it?

5) Discuss the concept of layers in the poem.

The Furthest Distance I've Travelled: links

This disarmingly frank article by Flynn charts a shift in her work from a post-modern reluctance to acknowledge individual identity to a more open accommodation of the self:

http://edinburgh-review.com/extracts/article-leontia-flynn/

Hear Flynn reading this poem on the Poetry Archive:

http://www.poetryarchive.org/poem/furthest-distances-ive-travelled

The Guardian’s review of her most recent collection, Profit and Loss, explores and amplifies many of the qualities found in ‘The Furthest Distances I’ve Travelled’:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/sep/02/profit-loss-leontia-flynn-review

Flynn’s own website has a range of other articles and resources:

http://leontiaflynn.com/

Deliverer poet - Tishani Doshi - and some of her more recent poems

http://www.tishanidoshi.com/

Thesis on Ezra Pound's Imagist influence on Eliot and The Fire Sermon

http://digitalwindow.vassar.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1209&context=senior_capstone

Sex and the Church

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXFLQftgJGY

History