Seasons Greetings from Myrna and Mina

There is a post that's really about Loy (Mina) here, an account of the Loy event at Bluecoat nearly two years ago now.

I have updated my two websites. Do have a look. One is for me; the other for the European Union of Imaginary Authors. I did both in preparation for the publication of Twitters for a Lark, this year's personal big publishing event (the other being the anthology Atlantic Drift). See also the two links in this paragraph to those two, very different, parallel books (if only in my mind). 

https://robertsheppard.weebly.com/

https://euoia.weebly.com/

Compliments (and complements) of the Season!

Robert Sheppard: Bibliographical Problems with Magazine appearances 1972-2017!

I am currently putting together a bibliography of my work for the book that will come out of the Sheppard Symposium held earlier this year. (See here.) It’s going well, if a bigger job than I’d conceived. I know I have several shelves of the results of my magazine appearances, but when I started to list them I ended up with this list, which is not complete!

Creative Writing in Magazines (Select)

‘Poem’ and ‘A Vision’, Platform 4, Sept-October 1972

‘the lover’ Doris, 6: January 1975

from 'Homage to the Soft Machine', Alembic, Orpington, Alembic, 2 Aug 1978

‘To Penny, after music,’ Preston, Palantir, 1979

from ‘Triptych’, Great Works, 7, May 1979.

‘The Return of the Fair Gardener’, ‘Slightly all the time’, ‘The Frightened Summer’, meeting in fire’, Words Worth 1: 3, September 1979

Pre-Fab, Palantir, Preston, Palantir, 1980

poem: Notation, Oasis, London, Oasis, 1981

‘The Letters from the Basement, Figs 5, March 1981

‘Ghost Frames’, ‘The Blickling Hall Poem’, Kudos 7, April 1981

from 'Tombland', ‘The Factory Island Poems’,  Angel Exhaust 4, 1981

‘Of Appearances: Of a Naked World’, Molly Bloom 2, 1982.

‘Three unrevised sections from Ghost Book, Reality Studios Vol 5, 1983.

The Hungry Years, Palantir, 1983

: Returns, The Artful Reporter, Manchester, North West Arts, 1983

‘The Etiquette of Undersea Weddings’ and four poems of Wayne Pratt, Rock Drill 4, August 1983

The Blickling Hall Poem, Poor Old Horse, PN Review, Manchester, Carcanet Press, 1984

'Returns', New Statesman, London, New Statesman, 16 Mar 1984

'Situations', New Statesman, 26 Jul 1985

Robert Sheppard (1986) Processual, 'The Micropathology of the Sign', poem-introduction, London, Writers Forum

‘Strategies’, Ninth Decade 5, 1985

Mesopotamia, Reality Studios, London, Reality Studios, 1986

Unwritings, Staple Diet, Durham, Pig Press, 1986 (whole issue)

‘The Cannibal Club’ and ‘Looking North 1, Angel Exhaust 7, June 1987

Schrage Musik, Slow Dancer, London, Slow Dancer Press, 1987

from ‘Radio Anna’, ‘Homage to Bob Cobbing’, Archeus (n.p) 1989

from ‘Radio Anna’, First Offense 6, March 1990.

Untitled for Patricia Farrell, Raddle Moon, Vancouver, Raddle Moon, 1990

‘Smokestack Lightning’ and ‘The Magnetic Letter’, RWC 1, December 1990.

from ‘Boogie Stop Shuffle’, Fragmente 2, December 1990.

from ‘Smokestack Lightning’, Responses 2, February 1992.

Melting Borders, Critical Quarterly, London, Critical Quarterly, 33(2), 1991, 1991

from ‘Killing Boxes’, Memes 6, December 1991.

poems: Sharp Talk and Amended Signatures; Empty Diaries 1932-1936', Angel Exhaust 8, 1992

Empty Diaries 1938-1945, Slow Dancer 28, London, Slow Dancer Press, 1992

from Empty Dairies’, Oasis 54, July 1992.

 ‘Empty Diaries 1914-1919’, Scratch 8, June 1993.

‘Fucking Time’, Oasis 60, July 1993.

from ‘Smokestack Lightning’ in ANONATEXTOSAURUS: A4 Anonymous 19, 1993.

‘Stella by Starlight (Empty Diaries)’, :that: 18, December 1993

‘Empty Diaries 1968 and 1974’, Ramraid Extraordinaire 2, February 1994

‘The Girl Can’t Help it’ from Empty Diaries, Grille 3, April 1994.

'Empty Diary 1960-1966', Object Permanence 3, 1994

Shutters, Talus 8, London, Talus Editions, 1994

from ‘Empty Diaries’, First Offense 9, Spring 1994.

‘Empty Diary 1992’, Memes 10, September 1994.

 ‘Empty Diaries 1910-1908’, Ramraid Extraordinaire 3, October 1994

Empty Diaires (various), AND 7, London, Writers Forum, 1994

from The Lores, Form Card no. 49.

: The Lores, Book 8, West Coast Line, Vancouver, West Coast Line, 29(2), 1995

 ‘Empty Diary 1989/1990’, Blue Cage 4, April 1995.

‘The Lores, Book 9’, Mirage #4/Periodi(ical)#47, October 1995.

The Lores Book 10 in A Selection of New UK Poetry, Talisman, New Jersey, Talisman Press, 1996

from The Lores, Book 5, Oasis 76, January 1996.

from ‘The Lores, Book 5’, First Offense, ? March 1996.

The Lores Book 4, Angel Exhaust, 14, December 1996.

to the end of 1996… complete: sketchy after here:

Implosive Samples: Exploded Sestina', 'Untitled', Jacket (internet), Australia, Jacket, 1999

poems: for Scott Thurston, Small Voice, Small Voice 2, An Unsustained Sestina in Hundreds, Shearsman, Devon, Shearsman, 1999

: Armchair Adoption, In Good Voice, Tin Pan Arcadia, Towards a Neo-Diagonalist Manifesto', The Gig, Willowdale, Canada, The Gig, 1999

'Early Poems of Rene Van Valckenborch': 4 poems, The Adirondack Review, www.adirondackreview.homestead.com, web mag, 2000 (surely too early??? 2010???)

Abject Stutter Expectorates Laugh of the Human, For the Continuity Terminator, Oasis, London, Oasis Books, 2000

, poem: 'The Push Up Combat Bikini', Tears in the Fence, Devon, Tears in the Fence, 2001

1 ‘Angel at the Junk Box’, and ‘Freeze It’, Fire 14, May 2001.

prose-poem: 'In an Unknown Tongue', Oasis, London, Oasis, 2002

‘Smokestack Lightning’, Fire 17, May 2002.

'The Sacred Tanks of Dagenham’, cul de qui 1, September 2002.

‘Closing the Books, Locking the Chests’, Pores 2 (www.bbk.ac.uk/pores) December 2002.

, Reading 'The Reader' of Bernhard Schlink', Great Works (internet), Bishop Stortford, Great Works, 2004

'Only the Eyes are Left', 'A Scapel of Light Slicing Through a Smile'., The Gig, Willowdale, Canada, The Gig, 2004

Luscious Clusters', 'Poeme Objecte from the Catalan', 'The Pissing Bridge', Call, New York, USA, Call, 2004

: 'Four Odes', 'The Dusk of Liberty', 'Botanising the Asphalt of Veolpolis', Tears in the Fence, Devon, Tears in the Fence, 2004

: 'HymnS to the God in which my Typewriter Believes', Poetry Salzburg Review, Austria, Poetry Salzburg, 7, 2004

‘Pentimento – whatever happened next to Twentieth Century Blues’, AND 12, September 2004.

: In Memory of the Anti-Poem', Stride magazine (internet), Exeter, Stride, 2005

: 'Rattling the Bones - for Adrian Clarke', Softblow (internet), Singapore, Out of Print, 2005

Berlin Bursts, Shadowtrain 2 (internet), 2006

(2006) Van Valckenborch's Cube, Ekleksographia, 3

12 poems: from Warrant Error, Jacket (internet), Australia, Jacket, 2007

Poem, Agenda, Kent, Agenda Editions, 43(1), 24, 2007

(2008) two poems from Warrant Error, English, 57 (208), 125-6

Ordinary Renditions 1-12, Shearsman, Exeter, Shearsman Books, 43-9, 2008

Two Poems from Warrant Error, Stimulus-Respond, London, Stimulus-Respond, 2008

4 poems from Warrant Error, Veer Off, Birkbeck College, London, Veer Books, 2008

, Six poems from Warrant Error, Parameter, Manchester, Parameter, 2008

, 8 poems from September 12, Fire, Oxford, Fire, 39-41, 2009

from 'Poems Against Death', Poetry Wales, Brigend, Wales, Seren Books, 45(1), Summer 2009, 2009,

: 'Mute 'Piano Riga', ‘Cinna the Poet', ‘Song', `Women She Tells', Litter (internet), Nottingham, Leaf Press, 2009

(2010) Critical Tuning: Radio Interference and Interruption as a Poetics for Writing, VLAK, 1 (1), 62-66

, 'with veryan weston/BACKGROUND PLEASURES, AND, London, AND, 13, 51, 2010

, Dave Cave: Hologram Poet, Onedit (webzine www.onedit.net, London, Onedit, 16, 2010

'The House of Opportunity', Shadow Train, www.shadowtrain.com/id370.html, 2010

(2010) Two Poems Against Death, Tears in the Fence, 52, 39-40

In the Complex, Sunfish, 3, 7-14........................................................

It is incomplete, of course, because I have stopped it. While I think that the list of my reviews and articles informs, this list will be perhaps of interest to other poets who published in these years. Did you first appear in Platform? And where is Andrew Cozens, its editor, now?

What I’m going to do is simply list the magazines in order of my appearance in them, one appearance each. So this instead:

Platform, Doris, Alembic, Palantir, Great Works, Words Worth, Oasis, Figs, Kudos , Angel Exhaust, Molly Bloom, Reality Studios, The Artful Reporter, Rock Drill, PN Review, New Statesman, Ninth Decade, Reality Studios, Staple Diet, Slow Dancer, Archeus, First Offense, Raddle Moon, RWC, Fragmente, Responses, Critical Quarterly, Memes, Scratch, A4 Anonymous, :that:, Ramraid Extraordinaire, Grille, Object Permanence, Talus 8, AND, West Coast Line, Blue Cage, Mirage #4/Periodi(ical)#47, Talisman, Tears in the Fence, Boxkite, A.bacus, Vertical Images, Stride, The Gig, Counter-Hegemony, Shearsman, Lynx, Jacket, Terrible Work, Fire, Emergency Rations, cul de qui, Neon Highway, Pores, Call, Citizen 32, Poetry Salzburg Review, Softblow, Shadowtrain, Intercapillary Space, Exultations and Difficulties, Free Verse, The David Jones Journal, Pages, Popularity Contest, Skald, Agenda, Stimulus͢͢͢-Respond, New Writing, Veer Off, Parameter, Litter, Signals, English, Poetry Wales, Adirondack Review, Ekleksographia, Onedit, Eyewear, Sunfish, Roundyhouse, VLAK, Form and Fontanelles, Stand, The Claudius App, Damn the Caesars, The Wolf, Sugar Mule, Blackbox Manifold, Otoliths, International Times, Blazvox, Card Alpha, Noon, The Literateur, Poetry at Sangam, Adjacent Pineapple, Erbacce

I must have missed an earlier Erbacce: it isn’t the most recent, though I was in a recent issue (see here). Adjacent Pineapple is, though; see here for details...

It's Patricia Farrell's birthday (again!): link to last year's tributes

Last year I surprised Patricia for her big birthday by assembling a set of tributes, messages and responses. This year, it's a little one, but you can review all the homages (from Geraldine Monk to Allen Fisher, Peter Hughes to Bill Bulloch) here, along with info about Patricia's activities!

Robert

Kybartai Noctune Remode (by the EUOIA's Jurgita Zujute)

The original ‘Kybarti Junction’ appears in a straight translation by René Van Valckenborch in A Translated Man. (See here.)

The version here utilises the technique of his own ‘Revolutionary Song’ from the same book to transform the poem; Jurgita Zujūtė has performed the piece chorally with Stephenas Vaikinas-Žemė and Josephine Ventiliatorius. Actually, that's me performing it with Steve Boyland and Jo Blowers, which you can read about here. Of course, it is a technique that might be fruitfully applied to many poems.

 Here is the original 'Revolutionary Song' in colour!

Kybartai Noctune Remodel

(Revolutionary Song Number 2)

what is that sound humming like an antique

is that sound humming like an antique fridge

that sound humming like an antique fridge packed

sound humming like an antique fridge packed with

humming like an antique fridge packed with ice

like an antique fridge packed with ice the

an antique fridge packed with ice the hint

antique fridge packed with ice the hint of

fridge packed with ice the hint of a

packed with ice the hint of a turbine

with ice the hint of a turbine something

ice the hint of a turbine something turning

the hint of a turbine something turning a

hint of a turbine something turning a patient

of a turbine something turning a patient siren

a turbine something turning a patient siren rising

turbine something turning a patient siren rising and

something turning a patient siren rising and falling

turning a patient siren rising and falling perhaps

a patient siren rising and falling perhaps it’s

patient siren rising and falling perhaps it’s merely

siren rising and falling perhaps it’s merely the

rising and falling perhaps it’s merely the sound

and falling perhaps it’s merely the sound of

falling perhaps it’s merely the sound of maintenance

perhaps it’s merely the sound of maintenance men

it’s merely the sound of maintenance men on

merely the sound of maintenance men on the

the sound of maintenance men on the railway

sound of maintenance men on the railway hi-viz

of maintenance men on the railway hi-viz jackets

maintenance men on the railway hi-viz jackets between

men on the railway hi-viz jackets between last

on the railway hi-viz jackets between last train

the railway hi-viz jackets between last train and

railway hi-viz jackets between last train and first

hi-viz jackets between last train and first testing

jackets between last train and first testing the

between last train and first testing the line

last train and first testing the line it’s

train and first testing the line it’s a

and first testing the line it’s a tumour

first testing the line it’s a tumour on

testing the line it’s a tumour on the

the line it’s a tumour on the flanks

line it’s a tumour on the flanks of

it’s a tumour on the flanks of night

a tumour on the flanks of night this

tumour on the flanks of night this voice

on the flanks of night this voice its

the flanks of night this voice its pain

flanks of night this voice its pain rising

of night this voice its pain rising and

night this voice its pain rising and falling

this voice its pain rising and falling a

voice its pain rising and falling a suspiration

its pain rising and falling a suspiration perhaps

pain rising and falling a suspiration perhaps within

rising and falling a suspiration perhaps within me

and falling a suspiration perhaps within me the

falling a suspiration perhaps within me the benign

a suspiration perhaps within me the benign whine

suspiration perhaps within me the benign whine of

perhaps within me the benign whine of my

within me the benign whine of my nervous

me the benign whine of my nervous system

the benign whine of my nervous system but

benign whine of my nervous system but it’s

whine of my nervous system but it’s more

of my nervous system but it’s more like

my nervous system but it’s more like negative

nervous system but it’s more like negative space

system but it’s more like negative space growling

but it’s more like negative space growling in

it’s more like negative space growling in shadows

more like negative space growling in shadows beside

like negative space growling in shadows beside the

negative space growling in shadows beside the glowing

space growling in shadows beside the glowing curtain

growling in shadows beside the glowing curtain sound

in shadows beside the glowing curtain sound motes

shadows beside the glowing curtain sound motes floating

beside the glowing curtain sound motes floating in

the glowing curtain sound motes floating in the

glowing curtain sound motes floating in the eye

curtain sound motes floating in the eye of

sound motes floating in the eye of my

motes floating in the eye of my audition

floating in the eye of my audition darkness

in the eye of my audition darkness breathing

the eye of my audition darkness breathing pure

eye of my audition darkness breathing pure light

of my audition darkness breathing pure light or

my audition darkness breathing pure light or the

audition darkness breathing pure light or the broken

darkness breathing pure light or the broken reed

breathing pure light or the broken reed of

pure light or the broken reed of a

light or the broken reed of a pigeon’s

or the broken reed of a pigeon’s throat

the broken reed of a pigeon’s throat gasping

broken reed of a pigeon’s throat gasping toward

reed of a pigeon’s throat gasping toward dawn

Robert Sheppard and René Van Valckenborch

I am pleased to say the the whole EUOIA anthology, Twitters for a Lark appears from Shearsman. 

See the hub post about the book here. 

There is another Jurgita Zujute poem in the anthology, 'Insomniac Division'. And she has a complete page on the EUOIA website here. 

Updated Websites! Both the EUOIA and my own

I have updated my two websites. Do have a look. One is for me; the other for the European Union of Imaginary Authors. I did both in preparation for the publication of Twitters for a Lark


https://robertsheppard.weebly.com/

https://euoia.weebly.com/

Robert Sheppard: two poems excerpted from Twitters for a Lark

Here are two poems excerpted from Twitters for a Lark, not because I thought there was anything wrong with them but because I needed to cut the size of the manuscript: poems I had written on my own, rather than in collaboration, were obviously the first victims. The first poem was originally the epigraph of the book, the work of Erwin Wertheim, who crops up as one of the possible creations of the Luxembougish poet George Bleinstein. He is inexplicably described as ‘a vampire poet and Schnitzel champion’ (I have no idea what that means!).See here for a hub post about Twitters for a Lark.

            Voices 

One voice torn into two.

Or two sewn into one?  Two

turning into themselves. Itself.

One torn atwain, and again

the breaking down/building up: into

series, consequent, like the genome,

a trail of blood between the raw and the roasted. Or

a rained off vacation somewhere in ‘Europe’

in a leaky caravan, reading Paris-Match to one another,

hiding from our own others

behind the fridge next to the mousetrap.

                                                            Erwin Wertheim (1997)

The second poem is the second collaboration between myself and a cut up engine, God’s Rude Wireless, but it had to go because the other poem was the one into which I put the lines Rene Van Valckenborch quoted in A Translated Man – I wanted some continuity between the volumes. But I like the poem just as much and, as you can see, this one alludes to Rene.

Walk On Part

                        for René Van Valckenborch

walk off it’s a pretty flat song

to play the carousal and wingèd Pegasus

its painted rôle could be sung forever

you would like to have crooned torch songs

in Watteau the Musical with strings and swings

and some kitsch at the most

walk on

you would still like to

in a revival against the busy backdrop

you would like bouquets the only play in your self

that’s no bel canto no dipthong poignant verse

whereas this walk off is a pretty flat song

the hero has an exacting rôle

that a singer could sing

to a shy lover who’s tossed aside

by the song our old hero played to death

Maarten DeZoute

Twitters for a Lark: The Poetry of the European Union of Imaginary Authors

is published by Shearsman Books at £9.99 and in available here:

http://www.shearsman.com/ws-shop/product/6460-robert-sheppard-ed---twitters-for-a-lark

And there is a hubpost dedicated to the book here.

It strikes me that these two poems may have something to do with the potential third part of the Fictional Poets Trilogy (I’ve never put it like that before, but it’s what I’m thinking of doing.)

Atlantic Drift Launch: Zoe Skoulding, Trevor Joyce and Chris McCabe

Launch of Atlantic Drift: An Anthology of Poetry and Poetics

Published by Arc Publications and Edge Hill University Press 

November 23^rd , 7.30pm

Chris reading

Featured Chris McCabe, Trevor Joyce and Zoë Skoulding 

Introduced by the books' editors, Professor Robert Sheppard and Dr James Byrne and with remarks from Pro-Vice Chancellor Mark Allanson

Me explaining why the anthology contains poetics as well as poetry

This reading featured three poets from a new and groundbreaking publication of poetry and poetics published by Edge Hill University Press.

All three readers read well! Many copies of the book were sold...

Atlantic Drift publishes 24 poets from the UK, Ireland, USA and Canada in partnership with Arc Publications. This anthology seeks to highlight new and existing writing and to define/redefine the discussions between poets from both sides of ‘the pond’. By developing a dialogue between English-speaking traditions, Atlantic Drift will include some of the most exceptional poetry and poetics written in the 21st century.

But also visit this page HERE for the various posts I've made concerning the book, its editing, including videos and photos.
 

i.m Pam Jackson

Robert Sheppard: reading at Doped in Stunned Mirages: poems in response to Captain Beefheart (set list)

Sat 11 November 2017: 5 - 6.30pm

Bluecoat, Liverpool

Doped in Stunned Mirages: poems in response to Captain Beefheart

Poets: Patience Agbabi, Vahni Capildeo, Sarah Crewe, Patricia Farrell, Peter Finch, Libby Houston, Tom Jenks, Chris McCabe, me, Zoë Skoulding, Matthew Smith, Helen Tookey and Jeff Young.

Each responded to a Beefheart album, not in that order but in the chronological order of the albums they were assigned, Jenks to Tookey. 

This event took place between 5-6.30pm, but the day began with the Beefheart symposium and a chance to see an archive display and films that will run at Bluecoat. There was music in the evening, but we didn't get to that.

Devised by independent curator Kyle Percy, working in collaboration with

Chris McCabe and Bluecoat’s Artistic Director Bryan Biggs. My thanks to all three!

My diary: A rush to Bluecoat for the Beefheart symposium. Highlights: Lucy Cullen's film about the 1972 Bluecoat exhibition,

Graham Crowley nailing Beefheart's painting, Alan Dunn's film (with Edgar Jones, who we'd caught at the Handyman a couple of weeks ago), and Patricia Farrell, Sarah McCabe and Peter Finch examining the poetry, Gary Lucas' memories (we bought his new album that received a good review in The Wire)...

John Hyatt, Gary Lucas, and Alan the trumpeter: who played the last post at 11.00

Then the poets read: Vanhi was the real surprise, amongst a good set. Not heard her before. Or met. It sold out. Sorry? A poetry reading sold out. Well done, everybody involved...

I read my poem 'Beefore and Never' (which, with the others is published in the zine Click Clack, so I'm not going to quote much of it, but before I read (or beefore I read) I said:

My assigned album was Strictly Personal, a record that was made under adverse conditions and subject to post-production treatments that threatened to impose the trappings of psychedelia - fazing and so on - onto an album that was steeped in the blues. I knew some of the tracks on the album, but not all - and not the first track, whose first meoments delivered a 'strictly personal' surprise to me that coloured my active listening. The Captain was singing and playing harp on a surreal version of a song by his - and my - favourite country blues singer, Son House. The song, in Son House's version, is called 'My Black Woman', and the shock of it was that it was a song I used to sing with Tony Parsons. It was inevitable therefore that my poem, while picking up cluses and echoes from the album, is also a skip through the blues tradition.

Then I read the poems: 'blow in the sunset threading/ bones legs entwined/ swell/ into a cough cut huff' etc...

I decided not to sing a bit of the song and play the harp, though I could have. I found no way to transition from the music to the poem, from my singing voice to my reading voice. I thought the song might obscure the poem.

Patricia read with Rita:

A tan is addressed in her poem. Again, you'll need to consult the zine!

See Chris McCabe's blog for photos of all the poetry events: here.

More Petrarchan sonnets: Charlotte Smith's Elegiac Sonnets

I made a habit of posting my sonnets earlier in the year as they were written. I write about the Earl of Surrey ones here , where I explain that the poems were temporarily posted, partly because I was often commenting on contemporary events, like Boris' gaffes, and I wanted to get an immediate audience. See here for one reference to this latest sequence, feeding off of the sonnets of Charlotte Smith, and featuring Boris' last gaffe.  The new poem has a reference to his more serious one.(And Pretti Patel's.)

I left it up a week, but now it's gone. Sorry. Let's hope you'll read it in print one day....

I write about the completed 100 sonnets of The English Strain here. 

 

Robert Sheppard: New long poem, 'The Accordion book' published in Adjacent Pineapple 2

A long six part poem (or is it a long poem, I’m not sure) appears in the second issue of the vital magazine edited by Colin Herd, Adjacent Pineapple. Dig that name, dig my poem, here;

‘The Accordion Book’ is a long and deliberately involuted poem, dealing with perception, art and (in places) cognitive extension…. 

 

It begins:

Form becomes reform on this stretch

of paintbox limbs. Destruction is con-

structivist shivering, a black box with

unruly wires, splats! on grids. We

lean over our futures: white on black,

we silhouette our capering. One of us

faces the tank (we’ve learnt this pose from

YouTube footage) as they pounce to the beat....

 And then dig the work of the others:

    

  Dominic Hale

       Amy Gerstler

       Joey Frances

    Eva Ferry

Max Parnell

      Iain Britton

   Jonathan Coward

Maria Sledmere

Jordan Hayward

    Calum Rodger

Sally-Shakti Willow

 Tom Crompton

Loll Junggeburth

     Clive Gresswell

Nick Piombino 

      Medbh  McGuckian   

Jazmine Linklater

Denise Bonetti      

William Fuller  

Sascha Aurora Akhtar

Sarah Bernstein    

Paula Claire         

Claire Potter            

Paul Hawkins   

Millie Earle-Wright

Rachel Grande      

Laura Tansley    

Nicola Thomas    

Mike Saunders    

   Jonty Tiplady        

Thanks to Colin Herd for taking this work.  

Minilaunch of Twitters for a Lark/Earl of Surrey poems at EDGE POETICS November 4th November 2017 (set list)

There was a mini-launch of Twitters for a Lark as part of the Edge Poetics symposium, details here: https://www.beds.ac.uk/edgepoetics

4^th November 2017

10.00-17.30, with a public reading at 18.00 (that's where we'll launch)

Venue: University of Bedfordshire, Luton Campus

I read with Nicholas Royle,  Helen Marshall and Tim Jarvis.

I read the section 'The Unfortunate Fellow Traveller' from 'Surrey with the Fringe on Top', my irreverent takes on the Earl of Surrey's Petrarch poems, his 'Europoems' as the poems themselves call it. See here for more (or less) on the sequence.

Then I launched Twitters for a Lark by asking Simon Perrill to read our collaborative poem, the works of the Latvian poet Janis Raups. Then I finished off with the works of Lucia Cianglini.

Tim, Helen and Tim read marvellously unnerving short stories!

Twitters for a Lark: The Poetry of the European Union of Imaginary Authors

is published by Shearsman Books at £9.99 and in available here:

http://www.shearsman.com/ws-shop/product/6460-robert-sheppard-ed---twitters-for-a-lark

Working in collaboration with a team of real writers, Robert Sheppard has created a lively and entertaining anthology of fictional European poets.

This collection marks a continuation of the work Sheppard ventriloquised through his creation, the fictional bilingual Belgian poet René Van Valckenborch, in A Translated Man (also available from Shearsman here: http://www.shearsman.com/ws-shop/product/4328-robert-sheppard-a-translated-man ). Nicholas Royle is credited with having stoked upo the necessary Belgiophilia to invent him (see Nick's novel Antwerp.)

Although devised before the neologism ‘Brexit’ was spat across the bitter political divide, this sample of 28 poets of the EUOIA (European Union of Imaginary Authors) takes on new meanings in our contemporary world that is far from fictive, ‘fake news’ or not.

Read more about the European Union (of Imaginary Authors) here and here. and here:

http://robertsheppard.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/euoia-night-august-reading-at-other.html

And the Leicester (States of Independence) launch:

http://robertsheppard.blogspot.co.uk/2018/03/launch-of-twitters-for-lark-at-2018.html

Read about the Bangor launch here.

Read about the Manchester 2018 launch here:

http://robertsheppard.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/twitters-for-launch-part-of-european.html

Edge Poetics: My Keynote and Other events

Edge Poetics

A Symposium on Innovative and Speculative Creative Writing Practices in Higher Education

Me, with 'blogpost 5' on show

4^th November 2017

10.00-17.30, with a public reading at 18.00

Venue: University of Bedfordshire, Luton Campus

With keynotes from Professor Robert Sheppard (Edge Hill University) and Nicholas Royle (Manchester Metropolitan University), and contributions from Dr Helen Marshall (Anglia Ruskin University). In the evening we all read, along with Tim Jarvis. I launched Twitters for a Lark with delegate Simon Perril.

Just back from Edge Poetics: A great day: good company: lots of energy; plenty of ideas: everybody moaning about the tension between trying to nurture creativity and the obstructive nature of university research culture + empty but burgeoning administration. But also a recognition of the joys of what we do (well). 

You can read all parts of my drafts of a keynote but I didn't use them all. The material at the end of post four ('The Formal Splinter') below was (wisely I think) substituted by a different text. (Hopefully a final piece will be published in a polished form in a publication, so I'll leave the revisions until then.) It seemed to go down well. 

Keynote Part one here:

http://robertsheppard.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/robert-sheppard-notes-towards-keynote.html

Keynote Part two here:

http://robertsheppard.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/robert-sheppard-edge-poetics-dry-run.html

Keynote Part three:  

http://robertsheppard.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/robert-sheppard-edge-poetics-keynote.html

Keynote Part four:

http://robertsheppard.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/robert-sheppard-more-notes-towards-that.html

Keynote Part five:

http://robertsheppard.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/robert-sheppard-more-or-less-of-keynote.html

                Till relatively recently, Creative Writing in Higher Education has been dominated by a set of techniques and tropes derived from realism, and also by the expectations of mainstream literary fiction. Increasingly, however, aspects of innovative and speculative poetics are finding their way into the classroom.

                This one-day symposium will ask: what are the benefits for the pedagogy of Creative Writing of writing practices drawn from experimental and fantastic traditions; and what does it mean to be a writer interested in such traditions who also teaches Creative Writing in academe? 

Nicholas Royle's keynote (like mine) was a reflection upon teaching, in his case through a structural miming of BS Johnson's The Unfortunates. I'd wondered who'd bought that copy in the Bold St Oxfam. Now I know. Nick. Marvellous Liverpool detail from this excellent Manchester writer. I'd been away less than 24 hours and I was already nostalgic.  

Nick reading his speech

Thanks to Conference organisers Tim Jarvis, Keith Jebb, and Lesley McKenna (University of Bedfordshire) 

The Necessity of Poetics was a text produced over some years, in different editions from Ship of Fools, but it is serialised, in one version, here:

http://robertsheppard.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/robert-sheppard-necessity-of-poetics-1.html

Keith's students told me I was 'notorious' for it! They have to study it. I felt scowls in my direction!