Whilst I love figurative and descriptive language, my favourite writers (Sylvia Plath, Oscar Wilde) tend to stray from excessive descriptions in their works. They don’t use Hemingway’s Iceberg theory either, a method in which writers omit salient details and leave loose ends for the reader to tie. In The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath, Plath writes that ‘God, but life is loneliness, despite the shrill tinsel gaiety of “parties” with no purpose, despite the false grinning faces we all wear’. There’s no beating around the bush or sugarcoating, so to speak; life is painful. It’s isolating and extremely hard, and there will be times when you’re going to want to disappear. It’s imperative we find joy. Personally, I’m not very good at finding it but Wendy Cope seems to know where to look.
Wendy Cope is a phenomenal poet. I don’t think I’m alone in saying that I’m more drawn towards the texts of the worn-out and tired and that I’m the most creative when I’m sad. Perhaps Wendy Cope feels the same way - maybe she’s so deeply sorrowful for a stretch that the very few gaps in the dark are overbearingly bright. Maybe she ate an orange one day and its succulence quenched a painful thirst that had seeped from her throat to her chest. Maybe she saw a prominent, large orange in a supermarket and was so amused by it that her imagination told a story to her. My mind does that to me a lot.
Or perhaps she was just happy. Perhaps she was truly grateful to exist. She succeeds in evoking gratitude in her readers through her simplistic yet poignant stanzas. It’s a reminder that artists don’t need to utilise what keeps them up at night to create art.
I can’t read ‘The Orange’ without smiling, no matter how heartbroken or tired I am. The poem was especially comforting during the first lockdown; I was missing watching a film in a packed cinema and getting fifty pages into a book in Waterstones before I’d even purchased the paperback. The speaker in ‘The Orange’ is content and grateful despite the simplicity of their situation. They may be bouncing back from a horrendous, life-altering event but it makes no difference - the love they have for their friends outpowers it.
Hi everyone! I hope you're all well.
I'm in the midst of the busiest few weeks I've ever had. I have pitstops to make in Manchester, Worcester, Glasgow, Stratford and West Bromwich (haha). All in the space of two weeks.
After lockdown, it's quite nice to be able to venture out and see places. I'm not quite sure I'd recommend so many places in such a short amount of time.
Anywho - stay safe out there and let me know what you get up to!
Karisma
xx