Robert Sheppard: Four Poems from 'Non Disclosure Agreement' published in Some Roast Poet

Four poems from ‘Non-Disclosure Agreement’ have appeared in the Spring 2020 edition, number three, of the Manchester-based magazine Some Roast Poet, edited by Steve Henson. Big thanks to Steve!

‘NDA’ are overdubs or transpositions of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese. Like others of these poems tracking politics in and around Brexit, the title (at least) was prophetic, since they become suddenly important because of the #metoo movement, but the speaker of the first half, ‘Brazilian Sonnets’, is the mistress of a Government minister during Brexit. The second half, ‘Cake and Eat It Britain’, has a variety of speakers; finally it shows Petrarch himself, coming back to claim his tradition; and that poem is featured in Some Roast Poet.

Brazilian Sonnets

Four other 'NDA' sonnets, appear online in Molly Bloom, Aidan Semmens’ fine  magazine, here. Four more, featured on Stride, may be accessed here:

https://robertsheppard.blogspot.com/2019/02/robert-sheppard-four-sonnets-from-non.html


I write about Non Disclosure Agreement here:

http://robertsheppard.blogspot.com/2018/09/robert-sheppard-non-disclosure.html


I hope this isn’t confusing but Non Disclosure Agreement is the last section of The English Strain, which I write about here . (Book Two of ‘The English Strain’, Bad Idea, is written about here .)

… as on a Boris bike … (phrase from one of the published poems)

Some Roast Poet also contains poems by Tim Allen, Alan Halsey, Scott Thurston, Karen Kendrick, Nell Osborne, and carries a long poem by Rhys Trimble.


There is a blog HERE.