Wendy Cope

From Thomas Tallis and JS Bach to The Beatles.

Poet Wendy Cope shares her castaway choices with Lauren Laverne.

Wendy is one of England’s most popular and widely-read contemporary poets.

Her first volume of poetry, Making Cocoa For Kingsley Amis, was published in 1986, and became an instant success. Wendy gave up teaching to become a full time writer.

She has since published four volumes of a poetry: Serious Concerns (1992), If I Don’t Know (2001), Family Values (2011) and Anecdotal Evidence (2018) as well as two volumes for children, Twiddling Your Thumbs (1988) and The River Girl (1991).

In 2011, Wendy sold her entire personal archive to the British Library, which consisted of 15 boxes of manuscript, including several unpublished early works.

Wendy lives in Ely and is married to fellow poet, Lachlan Mackinnon.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 2019.