Berowne's Book

Berowne’s Book was written by U. A. Fanthorpe before she began to write the poetry that was to make her reputation as one of England's most popular contemporary poets. "In 1974, having found that the way to get a job was to conceal my qualifications," she wrote, "I contrived to be taken on as a clerk/receptionist in a small hospital." As a student at Oxford, she’d formed a cheerful view of life in a hospital, but a neuro-psychiatric hospital provided very different experiences. "Poetry" she said, "struck during my first month behind the desk." With Berowne’s Book she had already written a witty commentary on what she saw around her as she typed. Her observations are accompanied here by some of her very earliest poems.

R. V. Bailey has published five poetry collections: Course Work, Marking Time, Credentials, From Me To You (written with her long-term partner U. A. Fanthorpe), and The Losing Game. U. A. Fanthorpe (1929-2009) published her first collection, Side Effects, in 1978. After eight volumes of poetry her Selected Poems was published by Penguin in 1986. Enitharmon Press published her Christmas Poems and From Me to You, love poems by Fanthorpe and R. V. Bailey.