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Introduction

Transfer-Encoding: chunked 1st Date She and He The poem is written by Wendy Cope. She is a contemporary poet and her poems are mostly light hearted and involve a lot of humour. First Date She and First Date He is a classic comparison between a male and female perspective on their first date. It is effectively two poems that are connected. In the monologue of ?She?, the female narrator talks about why she said she liked classical music. It is clear that she is trying to impress her date, to make him think that she is cultured and classy. She has insecurities which He did not even notice ?my brow is acceptably high?. She doesn?t like to lie and she admits this in the line ?it wasn?t exactly a lie?. ...read more.

Middle

The first stanza of the second poem almost completely mirrors the sentiments from the first two lines of the first poem. It therefore becomes clear that the man too is lying about a love for classical music and not unlike his female counterpart he tries to suggest that it was only partially a lie. He also tries to alleviate his guilt by suggesting he only implied he liked classical music. The tone of the second stanza is disappointing as he came late for the date. This might have discouraged the woman as turning up late might mean that the man is not interested in her. It becomes quite clear that the man does indeed desire the woman. ...read more.

Conclusion

The poem uses simple diction. The first poem is a quatrain with four stanzas . Each stanza contains four lines with the second and fourth line rhyming. This gives the poem a nice rhythm and helps to emphasise the gentle comic tone. The second poem is six stanzas long but mirrors the pattern of the first poem. This is unsurprising given that the two narrators mirror each others feelings to an extent. Both the narrators are disappointed and not entirely honest with each other. The poem is filled with irony. There are ?silent? voices in the poem. The couple?s inhibition and misplaced emphasis on appearances is seen in the poem. The side by side layout of the two points matches the seating position of the couple at the concert underlining the implication of ironic juxtaposition of ?so near yet so far? that they are close together physically but not connected mentally. ...read more.

This student written piece of work is one of many that can be found in our GCSE Other Poets section.