Selling his soul by Sophie Hannah

Sophie Hannah’s work is always a pleasure to read and hear. Many of her poems explore the cross-purposes that divide, and cruelly connect, men and women.

When someone says they have a poet’s soulYou can imagine laughing in their face –A sensible reaction on the wholeBut he convinced me that it was the caseAnd that his poet’s soul was out of placeWhat with his body selling advertising space.

The easy explanation sprang to mind –Was he pretentious, arrogant, insane,Or was it possible he’d been assignedJust what he said, and that his poet’s brain,Like a Laguna in the left-hand lane,Found itself trapped on unfamiliar terrain?

Even if there was just a one-in-fiveChance of it being true, I’d take the bet;The souls of advertising salesmen thriveIn many of the poets I have met,And if I’m right to think I won’t forgetHis soul, he’s passed the best test anyone could set.

His life was going to change. He felt inspired,He said, and vanished from my line of sight.I didn’t follow him. I have admiredThe way Lagunas fly past on the rightWhile slower cars can only watch their flight,Stuck in a ten mile tailback, every foggy night.

Selling His Soul is a typically unsettling love poem, the protagonist whose soul we’re invited to contemplate is immediately unappealing, and the reader may reasonably hope he’ll be seen off quickly with some fine, scathing words.

Demolition is suggested in the form of a question: “Was he pretentious, arrogant, insane …?” But, instead of delivering a final blast of feminine common sense, Hannah’s speaker weighs up, or pretends to weigh up, the pros and cons, and, surprisingly, moves to concede his point: “… was it possible he’d been assigned / Just what he said …” The reader is implicitly chastised.