Obituaries of U. A. Fanthorpe, who died on April 28, have noted that she was seventy-nine, that she began writing poetry when she was fifty and other facts about her life. They have also noted, as a TLS reviewer put it in 1988, that Fanthorpe "makes poetry out of private lives but manages to give them wider significance"; if so, "Extras" is an example of that process in reverse. Here, as in what may be her best-known poem – "Not My Best Side", about St George and the dragon as depicted by Paolo Uccello – she shows an interest in the ordinary aspect of a famous legend. While "the story" is going on around them, Iras and Charmian go to their deaths, the reasons for which are apparently too famous to need spelling out.

"Extras" was published in the TLS in 2000, in connection with that year's Aldeburgh Poetry Festival.

Extras

Two of them, always.
That is part of the story.

Speech, and Silence. The wit,
Who chats up soldiers, speaks the epitaph, Who knows the score,

And Iras, golden-mouthed,
Says less than Cordelia, even.

There is a soothsayer, to amuse
The women. But she is the one who knows,

Her words being dragged from the future
Into now. One dies before, one after.

The fig-seller's snake articulates them both,
But Iras goes first, dying of the queen's kiss;

Charmian later, contradicting a Roman.

The usual things are happening to the world:
Battles on land, battles at sea, pacts, violations of pacts,

Empire-building, empire-losing, men jobbing, men getting
On with the job, eagles, pyramids, yarns about wives and crocodiles.

In the dangerous centre of the court,
Eunuchs, messengers, decisions, jokes,

And the two, always,
One before, one after,
Who do nothing but die,
Being part of the story.

U. A. FANTHORPE (2000)

To read last week's Poem of the Week, "Fraud" by Carol Ann Duffy, click here.

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