Pages: British Standards published by Shearsman

Wednesday, August 07, 2024

British Standards published by Shearsman - out now

BRITISH STANDARDS is now available: https://www.shearsman.com/store/Robert-Sheppard-British-Standards-p661920471

At one level, the poems in my new book British Standards are what I call transpositions of Romantic era sonnets that pay homage to the exuberance and variety of that tradition, whether through examples of well-known poets, from Wordsworth to Clare, or through those of lesser-known practitioners, Mary Robinson to Hartley Coleridge. At another level, these transpositions chart the recent national banana-skin slippage from the hubris of brexit to the mismanagement of Covid (including the privations and solitudes of lockdown), with Bo at the helm. At both levels, they are satirical and funny, whether British Standard dogging sites are introduced as the sole brexit benefit, or ‘our’ hapless prime minister stumbles from indiscretion to disgrace. Between the levels, they vibrate with implication, rock with savage laughter (mine, but hopefully yours too).

Comments on the two previous parts of ‘The English Strain’ project, The English Strain and Bad Idea:

‘Among contemporary poets, only Sheppard could have achieved this unlikely synthesis; his poetry is learned, scholarly, satirical, outrageous and innovative as well as – most importantly – political.’ Alan Baker, Litter

‘This book is the sound a man of enlightenment and renaissance makes as he sees the long rich curve of knowledge – our real ‘heritage’ – being flushed clean down a political shitter…It is utterly brilliant.’ Steve Hanson, Manchester Review of Books

‘Sheppard is able to form activist responses to the times through which we live without sacrificing his linguistic range.’ James Byrne, The Robert Sheppard Companion

‘Sheppard posits … a translational mode that is open, fluid, permissive, voracious and, above all, creative.’ Tom Jenks, The Robert Sheppard Companion

Contents

Preface: England in 2019 (a transposition of Shelley)

Poems of National Independence: liberties with Wordsworth

Double Standards 1: Political Greatness, dub of Shelley

14 Standards (featuring 14 different Romantic poets)

Double Standards 2: Big Data and Little Bo, dub of Shelley

Tabitha and Thunderer: Interventions in Mary Robinson’s Sappho and Phaon

Ozymandias: a dub of Shelley

Weird Syrup:

part 1: Contrafacts and Counterfactuals from Keats

part 2: Curtal Song-Nets from Junkets

Lift not the Painted Veil: an overdub of Shelley

Unth(reading) Clare, versions of John Clare

Astral Zen Knickers: excessively silly overdub of Shelley’s ‘To Wordsworth’

Partly from Hartley (Coleridge): two double sonnets

To Laughter: a last overdub of Shelley

After Laughter (three ‘After’ poems, deriving from Gerard Manley Hopkins, Arthur Symons and Adam Mickiewicz, to land the book, as it were)

Many of these poems are commented on on this blog (indeed, most were posted temporarily on it). Here are three relevant long posts:

https://robertsheppard.blogspot.com/2021/04/transpositions-of-hartley-coleridge-end.html

https://robertsheppard.blogspot.com/2020/05/robert-sheppard-14-standards-from.html

Pages: The last of my Wordsworth versions in 'British Standards' (Book Three of 'The English Strain') (robertsheppard.blogspot.com)

I also got into the habit of reading them on short videos that are featured in some of these posts, but here’s one to keep you entertained. This is a version of a sonnet by John Clare. It accidentally turned into an art movie!

Here’s some more videos: https://robertsheppard.blogspot.com/2023/12/poetic-evidence-for-covid-enquiry-from.html

Finally, Book One of ‘The English Strain’ project, The English Strain, is available from Shearsman Books here:

https://www.shearsman.com/store/Sheppard-Robert-c28271934?offset=6