Connie Bensley’s poems are sharply satirical, often poking fun at social pretence and suburban pretension. They present a comedy of manners in which mismatched characters are bounced between love, death and disappointment. Hers is a seemingly small world but one which spans a whole universe of everyday life.
Finding a Leg to Stand On is a retrospective selection of her delightfully pointed poems drawn from six collections published over three decades, plus new work.
‘Connie Bensley’s poems are not only funny but truthful. This is the world viewed from London SW13: but hope, betrayal, love, self-delusion, moments of happiness characterise life lived in the suburbs just as much as anywhere else’ – Harry Eyres, Express on Sunday
‘Bensley is in fact a serious poet, dealing with serious matters. Beneath a deceptively light surface lie love, betrayal, loss, loneliness, fear, death. Her great strength is her unpretentiousness, her self- mockery, her refusal to be portentous’ – R.V. Bailey, Envoi
‘It makes for a wonderful, sad, cynical experience, as if La Rochefoucauld were meeting Alan Bennett over tea and cakes’ – Ross Cogan, Orbis
'Someone who can write with panache about the insouciant pleasure given by a new bra and the coital habits of camels is worth reading' - Helen Dunmore, Poetry Review
‘If Alan Ayckbourn wrote poetry instead of plays, he would sound something like Connie Bensley…like Ayckbourn she has the comic's knack of placing a lot of weight on thin-shouldered words, words blurred by common currency which are suddenly brought into sharp focus and don't really want to be. Beyond the laughs there's great poignancy' – Adam Thorpe, Observer
'She is a deft satirist and mistress of characterisation… Rich experience of life mixed with a sharp intelligence is the recipe for her satirical sense and darker observations' - Sarah Wardle, Poetry Review
