[A late-night literary discussion programme - the sort with sofas rather than swivel chairs. LEONARD, the presenter, is elderly, charming, and very patronising. He holds a copy of the book he is going to be discussing comfortably on his lap. His guest JEANETTE is in her thirties, not particularly at ease, but very assertive.]

LEONARD: [Concluding previous item] Thank you, Damien. [To ‘camera’] Gits in Shakespeare is published by Routledge, Kegan and Paul next Wednesday.

Our next guest is a remarkable woman. A prolific editor and anthologist of women’s literature, she has published The Essential Pam Ayres for Bloomsbury and for Virago the wittily-titled Collected Woks of Delia Smith. A ha ha ha. Her latest volume, The Complete Poems of Doreen Wentworth, has just been published by Littlehampton University Press. Hello, Jeanette Actually, welcome to the programme.

JEANETTE: Thank you.

LEONARD: I hope you’re comfortable there.

JEANETTE: I am, thank you.

LEONARD: Good. Right. Well now, then, about this book of yours. Doreen Wentworth - perhaps not the best-known of twentieth-century women poets?

JEANETTE: Well, perhaps she’s not at the moment, but I hope my book will cure all that.

LEONARD: Perhaps you could tell us a little about her.

JEANETTE: Well, from a biographical standpoint –

LEONARD: Cushion?

JEANETTE: – no thanks – from a biographical standpoint she’s no more remarkable than, say, Emily Dickinson or George Eliot. She was born Doreen Robson in Sheffield in 1932. She’s been married since 1950, lives in Milton Keynes, and is the author of more than a hundred published poems. Of course she’s been largely ignored by the literary establishment for the very simple reason that she’s a woman.

LEONARD: I see, I see. Well, I must say I’d certainly never heard of her until now.

JEANETTE: And that’s absolutely typical, if I may say so, Leonard. All the greatest women poets – Emily Dickinson, Sylvia Plath –

LEONARD:- Pam Ayres?

JEANETTE: Pam Ayres, absolutely – have been marginalised and excluded by the male-dominated literary establishment. Doreen Wentworth is no exception to that rule, so I’m not at all surprised you haven’t heard of her, Leonard. I’m not surprised at all.

LEONARD: Well, quite. I’ve heard the poetry of Pam Ayres, for instance, described by a certain reputable critic who shall remain nameless as ‘not very good’.

JEANETTE: [Getting rather cross] And that’s exactly the kind of thing I mean. You people –

LEONARD: Perhaps you’d like to give us a sample now of Mrs Wentworth’s oeuvre, so we can all see what it is that we’ve been missing all this time.

JEANETTE: [Grimly] Of course. The piece I’m going to read is called ‘The Royal Wedding’, and it was written on the occasion in 1981 of the marriage of the Prince and Princess of Wales –

LEONARD: [Suddenly nervous] God rest her soul.

JEANETTE: Yes. ‘The Royal Wedding’, by Doreen Wentworth.

[She reads in an intense voice, as most of the lighting fades down low, except for a spotlight on her. We can still just about see LEONARD leafing through the book until he finds the poem in question.]

           Prince Charles is going to be marrying Lady Di
           I expect when I see the wedding I shall cry.
           They’re going to get married in Westminster Abbey
           Which really ought to make the Queen very happy.
           Through the streets they’ll process in a coach all golden
           Just like they used to do in the days of olden,
           Then in the Abbey they’ll take their vows
           To the sound of many excited ‘ooh’s and ‘wow’s.
           With her bridal train and bouquet Lady Di’ll look radiant,
           And catch the eye of many a Special Branch agent.
           They’ll be guarding her, you see, in case anyone tries her to slay
           Which would surely be in bad taste on such a very special day.

[Long pause. JEANETTE looks defiant.]

LEONARD: I see from your rather sparse notes that that piece is generally considered one of Wentworth’s better poems.

JEANETTE: I’d say so, yes.

LEONARD: And that it was first published on the letters page of the Milton Keynes Citizen, on June 1, 1981.

JEANETTE: That’s right.

LEONARD: Those are the only two facts you do actually mention in your notes to that poem, I can’t help noticing.

JEANETTE: I didn’t really feel the poems needed a lot by way of critical apparatus. The clarity of the language speaks for itself with great lucidity.

LEONARD: Indeed it does. I see that actually rather a lot of her poems received their first publication on the Milton Keynes Citizen’s letters page.

JEANETTE: All except the few which were deemed unsuitable for publication by the male-dominated editorial staff at the MKC, yes. There’s an honourable tradition of women poets receiving their first publication in periodicals, especially with many publishers being implacably opposed to unknown housewives being allowed to publish collections of poetry.

LEONARD: Indeed. It’s obvious at a brief glance that many, indeed most, of the pieces included in the collection are what one would probably call occasional poetry. ‘The Birth of Prince Harry’, ‘The Christening of Princess Eugénie’, ‘The Queen Mum’s Hip Operation - Get Well Soon, Ma’am‘ –

JEANETTE: That’s right, yes.

LEONARD: – ‘The Royal Divorce’, ‘The Second Royal Divorce’, ‘The Queen and Prince Philip - Fifty Glorious Years and Still Going Strong’.

JEANETTE: That’s right.

LEONARD: Not to mention the rather lengthy sequence relating to the last thirty-two birthdays of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.

JEANETTE: What’s your point exactly, Leonard?

LEONARD: I wonder, would you call Wentworth a political poet, particularly?

JEANETTE: There is a certain underlying political ideology, if you pay close enough attention, yes. But I wouldn’t say it formed a dominating factor in her work.

LEONARD: I see. And what precisely, I wonder, would be your reaction to the critics who suggest that Wentworth is a nobody with all the literary ability of a twelve-year old who hasn’t yet discovered masturbation? And that you are cynically cashing in on the current trend for the discovery and publication of obscure women poets?

JEANETTE: I consider them beneath my notice, Leonard. Wentworth is a major voice in British topical poetry of the late twentieth century. With the publication of my book she’s here to stay, and the sooner these so-called critics get used to that, the better.

LEONARD: And what’s your next project, now that Wentworth has been brought out into the open?

JEANETTE: A critical edition of the agony columns of Miriam Stoppard. She’s been overshadowed by her husband’s reputation for far too long.

LEONARD: I see. Well, to wind up the programme tonight, I gather you’re going to read us one of those poems of Wentworth’s which was rejected by the Milton Keynes Citizen– one of the ones considered just that little bit too controversial for publication?

JEANETTE: That’s right, Leonard.

LEONARD: And what’s it called?

JEANETTE: It’s a piece from 1997, and it forms rather a companion piece to the one I read earlier. It’s called ‘Diana, Princess of Wales - Rest in Peace’

LEONARD: [Uncomfortably] Um, right.

JEANETTE: [Inexorably] Dear Princess of Hearts, you’ve drawn your last breath,
           In a horrifying car crash which crushed you to death.

[During the poem, the light fades to a spotlight on JEANETTE once more. The last we see of LEONARD, he is shifting uncomfortably and looking at his watch.]

           Our Diana, who we all thought was destined for survival,
           Was taken to hospital with multiple injuries and pronounced dead on arrival.
           How will we ever fill this void in our lives?
           When I heard the news I cried and I cried.

           Some say you only did charity work to make yourself look good,
           And slept with as many men as you possibly could,
           And that you weren’t very clever, but just ask the victims of AIDS
           And the amputees who’d been blown up by landmines which wicked people laid,
           Whether you did them good or no.
           I think their answers will just go to show,

           Because now you’re in Heaven with God and Dodi
           And many other lovely people who used to be so de–

[Turns page]

           –ar to us, including Mother Teresa and Russell Harty –
           I’m sure the whole lot of you are having a lovely party.
           So if anyone says they didn’t like Princess Di,
           I’ll tell them I hate them and wish they would die.

[Blackout]

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