Wendy Cope: Heaven on Earth

In a gloriously exuberant anthology, Wendy Cope sets out to prove that misery doesn't have all the best lines. What makes us happy? In her introduction the editor says of the subject-matter of these poems: 'A lot of them are about love - of lovers, spouses, children. There are also poems about places, the beauty of the natural world and the changing seasons, about company and solitude, about music, books, food and drink, and the pleasure of taking a shower. And there are some religious poems.' Among the more surprising items are the Chinese Po Chu-l on the advantages of baldness, the eighteenth-century John Dyer on the kindly behaviour of his ox, and an unusually cheerful Thomas Hardy enjoying the sight of seven women laughing as they stagger, arm in arm, down an icy hill, Catullus, Chaucer, Clare, Dickinson, Betjeman and Larkin are among the contributors who help to demonstrate that people who believe that 'happiness writes white' have got it wrong.