Going her own way …

… “Anecdotal Evidence” in the Case of Wendy Cope - Los Angeles Review of Books. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Anecdotal Evidence has many of the strengths of Cope’s older work; it is concise, accessible, and sincere. Its poems are very good, just different from the treasured pieces of the ’80s and ’90s. An example is “Naga-Uta” (a Japanese form of alternating five and seven syllable lines — a sort of extended haiku), which begins with some quietly Anglo-Saxon alliteration and then settles into the sparer Japanese imagery associated with the form. Another example is the musically lilting “Lantern Carol,” the best of several poems in which this nonbelieving poet longs for the solace of religion.