P.D. James, Cambridge And Croydon Poem by gershon hepner

There’s a Baroness James of Holland Park
and my wife, a French teacher in one of the schools
in that place in west London, and now matriarch
in Beverly Wood of a home that she rules
with a fist that’s not iron, and wit of a wench
whose poems are flawless and I, unobjective,
esteem very highly. She’s fluent in French
but clueless re crime, and hardly detective
like those in the books of the Baroness. How
I wish that like P.D. she too, would have written
in a genre that surely is far more low brow
than the one that she’s chosen, with poet-bug bitten.

It wasn’t in Cambridge High School that she studied;
unlike P.D. James she was brought up in Croydon,
and in its fine School with great teachers she buddied,
and turned into matriarch-poet, not hoyden.
The style of her prose like the style of her verse
is impeccable. Oh, how I wish she liked crime,
like the Baroness, but she was struck with a curse,
preferring, like Byron and Keats, to write rhyme.

Albert Kyle reviews “Talking About Detective Fiction, ” by P.D. James in the WSJ, December 9,2009 (“A Few Clues From a Master”:

About to enter her 10th decade, Baroness James of Holland Park––known as P.D. James to millions of readers––steps back from writing her own suave, thoughtful detective novels to discuss the whole genre: what makes detective novels work, why are they so broadly appealing and which authors have written the best ones over the years. “Talking About Detective Fiction” is a short book, but it has heft, and little wonder, given Lady James’s literary mastery and deep familiarity with her subject…..And her long-ago instruction at the excellent Cambridge High School (no university degree––take that, A.S. Byatt!) apparently instilled in her an admirably precise prose style. Her literary sensibility––calm observation and exact description––is on ample display in “Talking About Detective Fiction.”

Linda’s comment was:

GOOD BOUNCE AND FUNNY. NICE TO HAVE CROYDON MENTIONED. SORRY I’M SO CRIME-CHALLENGED. TC BELOW:

12/9/09