From Me to You: Love Poems

by U.A. Fanthorpe, R.V. Bailey, Nick Wadley (Illustrator)

U. A. Fanthorpe and R. V. Bailey write: ‘Wordsworth speaks of the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings. This seems an apt description of these love poems. They are not important resonant pieces of writing: they simply happened when one of us felt like writing to the other, quite often when one of us was away from home. Some of them coincided with Valentine's Days or birthdays, but that was more a matter of good luck than foresight. Quakers, rightly, maintain that Christmas Day is only one important day of all the 365 important days of the year. It's the same with love poems: they are appropriate at any time, and can be written, incidentally, to dogs, cats, etc., as well as humans. No room for Cupid. […] The pleasant thing about writing such poems, apart from having someone to write them for, is that there is no particular restriction as to subject matter. In Christmas Poems, U.A. felt the draughty awareness of the diminishing cast of subjects, from donkey to Christmas tree. With love, on the other hand, the sky's the limit.’

Genres: Poetry

80 pages, Paperback

First published April 15, 2007

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

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ursula Fanthorpe and Rosie Bailey met as English teachers at the same Cheltenham school in their late twenties and were partners for nearly 40 years. None of the poems in this short volume are attributed, though I recognized a few from Fanthorpe’s Collected Poems. They’re not particularly distinguished as poetry, but I appreciated the simple, unsentimental examples of what makes up everyday life with a partner: “There is a kind of love called maintenance, / Which stores the WD40 and knows when to use it; // Which checks the insurance, and doesn’t forget / The milkman” (“Atlas”) and “I’m working on a meal you haven’t had to imagine, / A house cleaned to the rafters” (“Dear Valentine”).

Reviewed with five other “love” titles for a Valentine’s-themed post on my blog, Bookish Beck.

[Helen Arnold · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some playful poems that capture the joy of love in lots of different forms and amongst different beings

[Antonomasia · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of love poems between partners who were together for decades is really not the kind of thing I thought I could deal with reading any time remotely soon. But this is U.A. Fanthorpe, and I read the first one ... and entirely regardless of who isn't there, it was like a Sunday evening by the fire with cocoa and the most beautiful view out of the rain-smudged window. Like Fanthorpe's other work, this is still as much "in love with the long-ago lovely English past" as with another person. This was definitely going to be fine.

Most of these aren't love poems as generally thought of; some seem to be here simply because they were included in letters. They are about many other things: history, places, other people, mythology, jobs, a cat; the "you", whilst in the writer's mind always, can be incidental to the reader. (Though in one case a poem is addressed not to Rosie Bailey but to Charon.) I think I could usually tell which poems were by Fanthorpe and which by Bailey and it goes without saying really that I preferred Ursula's with her wit and historical scope - she has been one of my favourite writers for years.

And their personalities and stories are so distinct that nearly always I felt these poems were about *them* and very sweet, in a not-in-the-least sickly way. Not about generalisations I've missed out on. As such I would recommend these to people who find most love poetry to be too drippy and flowery. (Like a damp bunch of roses from the petrol station?)

--------- And here endeth the review proper

(Only one jagged at me, about being awake whilst your partner is sound asleep ... Most other people don't have that frozen fear of the mortal sin of disturbing their sleep, dragging them irrevocably into a battle with monsters whose tedium and terror you'd rather they remained permanently oblivious to. Most other people not having strange illnesses which contribute to insomnia.)

I would never have known about U.A. Fanthorpe were it not for the 1990's A-Level syllabus; it is such a shame that she's not better known. I would think that most people who like Betjeman would like her poems, and she is also more humane and sympathetic to the dispossessed. It was puzzling, being introduced to a lesbian writer in a small-minded Catholic school. I didn't know what I was supposed to think (that being a great concern of mine in those days, as well as a favourite phrase of my mother's.) The class was going to go to a reading by Fanthorpe at one point, but either it was cancelled or I had a bad cold; whichever it was I was grateful as I didn't want to have to deal with being simultaneously among two groups of people with whom I would want to think and behave completely differently.

With her obvious erudition and work that was about places and people regardless of gender, she also helped to temper some of what I'd first read from Camille Paglia a year or two earlier : "don't fall down the rabbit hole of the lesbian scene", excoriating an unstylish and intellectually bland culture. That generalisation stuck - though I don't think it would if I hadn't already been fond of the Apollonian / Bacchanalian fierceness and camp which Ms P advocated, and if most of the lesbians at my university hadn't been butch, practical and cliquey and uninteresting to me - but I do wonder whether I'd have ended up a few percentage points less straight if it weren't for her. U.A. Fanthorpe evidently wasn't a very fashionable dresser, but while her poetry can be cosy, it's so because of its intellectual breadth, wit and observational precision.

[Susan Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my new favourite poetry collection. Not just because its a delightful volume of love poems but it’s also because of the way the particular poetry collection talks about joyousness of casual intimacy and the easy domesticity of a long term relationship. A lot of love poetry talks about the initial rush of getting together whereas these poems are so rooted in two people completely sharing a life. This would be refreshing to read in any collection but personally reading a collection about such a wonderful lesbian relationship was a revelation to me.

The actual story of the relationship between the poets U. A. Fanthorpe and R. V. Bailey is incredibly romantic by itself. They worked in a ladies college together for seven years before they realised they were in love. Unfortunately, there was a bit of a scandal and they had to leave the job but they remained together for 44 years.

This long-standing creative collaboration can be seen in the very way this collection was put together. These poems were collected from between the two but they are not individually signed. The blurb of the book (attributed to both of them) states ‘Wordsworth speaks of the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings. This seems an apt description of these love poems. They are not important resonant pieces of writing: they simply happened when one of us felt like writing to the other’. The blurb carries on by talking about how its not just big occasions but every day is the appropriate time to write a love poem.

A great example of this collections wonderful way of talking about the day to day of a loving long term relationship is :
Atlas

There is a kind of love called maintenance,

Which stores the WD40 and knows when to use it;


Which checks the insurance, and doesn’t forget

The milkman; which remembers to plant bulbs;


Which answers letters; which knows the way

The money goes, which deals with dentists


And Road Fund Tax and meeting trains,

And postcards to the lonely; which upholds


The permanently rickety elaborate

Structures of living; which is Atlas.


And maintenance is the sensible side of love,

Which knows what time and weather are doing

To my brickwork; insulates my faulty wiring;

Laughs at my dryrotten jokes; remembers

My need for gloss and grouting; which keeps

My suspect edifice upright in the air,

As Atlas did the sky.


I hope you will think about picking up this collection but if you are still on the fence please read one of my favourite poems from the collection

Going Under

I turn over pages, you say

Louder than any woman in Europe.


But reading’s my specific for keeping

Reality at bay; my lullaby.


You slip into sleep as fast

And neat as a dipper.

You lie there, breathing, breathing.


My language is turn over

Over and over again. I am a fish

Netted on a giveaway mattress,

Urgent to be out of the air.


Reading would help; or pills.

But light would wake you from your resolute

Progress through night.


The dreams waiting for me twitter and bleat.

All the things I ever did wrong

Queue by the bed in order of precedence,

Worst last.


Exhausted by guilt, I nuzzle

Your shoulder. Out lobs

A casual, heavy arm. You anchor me

In your own easy sound.

[Richard Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very beautiful book. Poems that U A Fanthorpe and R V Bailey (both women if you don't know) wrote to each other over the many years of their love affair. You don't know who wrote which poem. As in the deepest loves they were one. The poems are understated, funny, moving, and somehow very English. Like Larkin without the bitter edge.