He has slept with accountants and brokers,
With a cowgirl (well, someone from Healds).
He has slept with non-smokers and smokers
In commercial and cultural fields.

He has slept with book-keepers, book-binders,
Slept with auditors, florists, PAs
Child psychologists, even child minders,
With directors of firms and of plays.

He has slept with the stupid and clever.
He has slept with the rich and the poor
But he sadly admits that he's never
Slept with a poet before.

Real poets are rare, he confesses,
While it's easy to find a cashier.
So I give him some poets' addresses
And consider a change of career.


Your Dad Did What?

Where they have been, if they have been away,
or what they've done at home, if they have not -
you make them write about the holiday.
One writes My Dad did. What? Your Dad did what?

That's not a sentence. Never mind the bell.
We stay behind until the work is done.
You count their words (you who can count and spell);
all the assignments are complete bar one

and though this boy seems bright, that one is his.
He says he's finished, doesn't want to add
anything, hands it in just as it is.
No change. My Dad did. What? What did his Dad?

You find the 'E' you gave him as you sort
through reams of what this girl did, what that lad did,
and read the line again, just one 'e' short:
This holiday was horrible. My Dad did.


The Norbert Dentressangle Van

I heave my morning like a sack
of signs that don't appear,
say August, August, takes me back...
____ That it was not this year...
say greenness, greenness, that's the link...
____ That they were different trees
does not occur to those who think
in anniversaries.

I drive my morning like a truck
with a backsliding load,
say bastard, bastard, always stuck
____ behind him on the road
(although I saw another man
____ in a distinct machine
last time a Dentressangle van
was on the Al4).

I draw my evening like a blind,
say darkness, darkness, that's
if not the very then the kind...
____ That I see only slats...
say moonlight, moonlight, shines the same...
____ That it's a streetlamp's glow
might be enough to take the name
from everything we know.

I sketch my evening like a plan.
I think I recognise
the Norbert Dentressangle van...
____ That mine are clouded eyes...
say whiteness, whiteness, that's the shade...
____ That paint is tins apart
might mean some progress can be made
in worlds outside the heart.

Sophie Hannah



Sophie Hannah's first two books of poetry The Hero and the Girl Next Door and Hotels Like Houses earned her a remarkably big audience. Her regular public readings and broadcasts for radio and TV have proved extremely popular. She has won an Eric Gregory Award, a North West Arts Award, and was patron of the 1995 UK Year of Literature and Writing. She has recently published her first novel, Gripless.