First of the Last Chances

Sophie Hannah

• Publisher: Carcanet Poetry
• Year: 2003
• Print ISBN:
  9781857546262
• eBook ISBN:
  9781847778734
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: European Poetry
• Index: Literature

Touching and uplifting, this collection of the poems of Sophie Hannah follows traditional rhyming schemes using language that is always realistic and postmodern. Focusing on love and loss, these poems chronicle the different ways that people, for better or for worse, can be significant to one another.

A Woman’s Life and Loves

The next eight poems have been set to music by the composer Gabriel Jackson, and form a song cycle that was originally conceived as a contemporary response to the Schumann song cycle Frauenliebe und Leben.

View

I am not lonely. I pretend

that I am here alone.

I do not see your shuttered face

or hear your monotone

but stare instead at roads and fields

and bridges and the sky

and feel the sun’s rays on my face.

However hard you try

to substitute your view for mine,

I see the things I see

and am no longer here with you

though you are here with me.

Equals

Each of my false apologies

I retrospectively withdraw.

Yes, there have been discrepancies

Between my conduct and the law.

I have done worse, I have done less

Than promises would have me do,

And as I cheat, as I transgress

I do not give a thought to you.

I sensed that you deserved it then

But took the blame and looked contrite

Before I did the same again,

Thinking the wrong was mine by right

And I enjoyed the risks I took,

The tricks I played, the daily scam.

I have done nothing by the book.

When I professed to give a damn

My smiles, my tears, my words were fake.

Cut me in half; the core was bad

And when you made your big mistake

I can’t deny that I was glad

To see, so newly justified

By your descent from fair and true,

The times I lied and lied and lied,

As if I knew. As if I knew.

Postcard

The chances are that by the time you get

This postcard, I’ll be home. I will have phoned,

Arranged to meet you and we will have met.

(That day, the day with nothing ruined yet,

No hasty lust or lingering regret,

Decisions and admissions all postponed,

Will be the best we have.) I will have toned

Down what I feel to pleasantries and owned

Up to no thoughts of you beyond the set

Formula: I admire your work. I bet

You will have done the same.

Grateful for this

Chance to stay friends and keep our present lives,

We will arrange another date and miss

Another chance before this card arrives.

Match

Love has not made us good.

We still do a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Acknowledgements
• Table of Contents
• Long for This World
• You Won’t Find a Bath in Leeds
• Out of This World
• Wells-Next-the-Sea
• Six of One
• Seasonal Dilemma
• Second-hand Advice for a Friend
• Dark Mechanic Mills
• Martins Heron Heart
• Tide to Land
• The Shadow Tree
• He is Now a Country Member
• Silk Librarian
• God’s Eleventh Rule
• Where to Look
• Brief Encounter
• The Cycle
• Black River
• The Cancellation
• The Guest Speaker
• Everyone in the Changing Room
• Your Funeral
• Away-day
• Mother-to-be
• Now and Then
• Healing Powers
• Homeopathy
• Your Turn Next
• To a Certain Person
• 0208
• Leave
• Ante-Natal
• On Westminster Bridge
• Ballade of the Rift
• Wedding Poem
• Royal Wedding Poem
• GODISNOWHERE (Now Read Again)
• Metaphysical Villanelle
• Squirrel’s the Word
• First of the Last Chances
• A Woman’s Life and Loves
• About the Author
• Also by Sophie Hannah
• Copyright