Guest post: The bliss of cancelled plans

Sure, doing stuff is nice but a good reprieve can be life-changing

I sent a favourite poem of mine to some friends on WhatsApp the other day. I’m not someone who has a poem for every occasion, ready to whip out apposite verse at the turning of each season or declaim T. S. Eliot’s non-feline oeuvre, from coffee spoons to ragged claws, at appropriate moments. I don’t have any Mary Oliver by heart, I’m ashamed to say, and the only reason I know of Rumi’s work is thanks to Instagram. I do have a few regulars on rotation, though: two of my inner existential earworms are “Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley and “This Be The Verse” by Philip Larkin, both of which come to mind more regularly than you might imagine. But the poem I put in the group chat is the one that I share most with other people. It’s by the author Sophie Hannah, and it always makes me smile in recognition. 

The Cancellation 

On the day of the cancellation 

The librarian phoned at two. 

My reading at Swillingcote Youth Club Had regrettably fallen through. 

The members of Swillingcote Youth Club 

Had just done their GCSEs 

And demanded a rave, not poems, 

Before they began their degrees. 

Since this happened at such short notice 

They would still have to pay my fee. 

I parked in the nearest lay-by 

And let out a loud yippee. 

The librarian put the phone down 

And muttered, ‘Oh, thank the Lord!’ 

She was fed up of chaperoning 

While the touring poet toured. 

The girl from the local bookshop 

Who’d been told to provide a stall 

But who knew that the youth club members 

Would buy no books at all 

Expressed with a wild gyration 

Her joy at a late reprieve, 

And Andy, the youth club leader, 

And the youth arts worker, Steve, 

Both cheered as one does when granted 

The gift of eternal life. 

Each felt like God’s chosen person 

As he skipped back home to his wife. 

It occurred to me some time later 

That such bliss, such immense content 

Needn’t always be left to fortune, 

Could in fact be a planned event. 

What ballet or play or reading, 

What movie creates a buzz 

Or boosts the morale of the nation 

As a cancellation does? 

No play, is the simple answer. 

No film that was ever shown.

I submit that the cancellation 

Is an art form all of its own. 

To give back to a frantic public 

Some hours they were sure they’d lose 

Might well be my new vocation. 

I anticipate great reviews. 

From now on, with verve and gusto, 

I’ll agree to a month-long tour. 

Call now if you’d like to book me 

For three hundred pounds or more.

From “First of the Last Chances” (Carcanet, 2003)

Illustration by Paper Trident

A cancellation can be such a blessing, can’t it? Even if it’s something I’ve been looking forward to, with someone I’m longing to see, there’s something magical about previously accounted-for time becoming available, to be used or squandered as only I see fit. To be properly enjoyed it has to fulfil certain criteria. In a perfect world, someone else has cancelled, rather than you doing the cancelling, so you don’t feel guilty; hopefully they are slightly indisposed rather than horribly ill; ideally it’s raining, so you’re glad you can stay at home and preferably it can be rescheduled at a much better time for all concerned.