I am pleased that Tony Frazer has selected a group of five sonnets
from Bad Idea for the latest Shearsman 121 and 122, the first of
which is actually the 'address to the reader' at the beginning of the sequence. (The
others were written between September and November 2018, and the trace both
Michael Drayton’s sonnets, of which they are ‘overdubs’, and the Brexit news of
the time.) So it’s a good place to start. There are, of course, lots of other
goodies in this issue, though I’ve yet to read it. It arrived in the middle of
me working on the first poem of the sequel, Idea’s
Mirror. It also contains
poetry by Clark Allison, Annemarie Austin, Benjamin Balint, Miranda Lynn
Barnes, Alison Brackenbury, Rachael Clyne, Andrew Duncan, Chris Emery,
Gerrie Fellows, Adam Flint, Mark Goodwin, Lucy Hamilton, Jeri
Onitskansky, Alasdair Paterson, John Phillips, Paul Rossiter, Alexandra
Sashe, Kate Schmitt, John Seed, Maria Stadnicka, Andrew
Taylor, James Turner, Rimas Uzgiris, Rushika Wick, Tamar Yoseloff; and translations of Greta Ambrazaitė and Toon Tellegen by Rimas
Uzgiris and Judith Wilkinson respectively.
You can buy the issue here: https://www.shearsman.com/store/Shearsman-121-and-122-p145544623
You can read more about Bad
Idea as it has evolved here, with links to other print outings from the
sequence, links to online sonnets, with links to earlier (related) sonnets in
the project The English Strain,
complete with photos and stuff:
The most recent instalment of The English Strain to appear
is Hap: Understudies of Thomas Wyatt’s
Petrarch is available from Knives Forks and Spoons here:
The cover of Shearsman is by Ghirlandaio; the cover of Hap is by Patricia Farrell
I’m delighted to announce that Bad Idea is available NOW from Alec Newman’s excellent press Knives Forks and Spoons, with a cover design by Patricia Farrell. You may get it HERE: https://www.knivesforksandspoonspress.co.uk/product-page/bad-idea-by-robert-sheppard-102-pages
