Dream Diary Friday 26 December 1975

Friday 26 December 1975

 

With Trudy on a beach. Talking of love. She’s trying to convert me. I see her the next night. ‘See what I mean?’ I argue, saying something about ‘changeless as the sea.’ 

Left fishing rod on beach. I go back. The teacher tells me it’s raining. I’ve left a history book there. It might be ruined. I go back and get them. I see John and Mick. They’ve just been to see the monster. I say that sometimes it’s got 4 eyes and sometimes one giant ONE. [Diagram of the giant eye.]

 

Also Dreamt of Lee Harwood’s first wife Marion (I’ve never met her). [Lee's first wife wasn’t called Marion; but Marion was a later friend, dedicatee of ‘Love in the Organ Loft’ (1967) and of other poems (some that he hadn’t yet written in 1975, of course).]

Dream Diary Saturday 20 December 1975

Saturday 20 December 1975

Dreamt of getting ‘A’ for an essay from Anthony Thwaite. [He didn’t teach us, but was often at UEA.] 

Embarrassed because Colin did more work and got lower grade.

Dream Diary Friday 19 December 1975

Friday 19 December 1975

Keep seeing Lee Harwood everywhere, sometimes naked (See New Departures 8/9 10/11 [in which there is a photo of Lee in the nip!]). Duplicator went wrong. [I had one to print poems and magazines.] Somebody laughing. Surreal landscapes. Flying over it.

Dream Diary Friday 12 December 1975

Friday 12 December 1975

Dreamt of dunking goldfish in jam jars.

Dream Diary Tuesday 9 December 1975

Tuesday 9 December 1975

 

Dreamt of Michael with Red Nails!

 

[also:] Cyclopedia

                        Dream year

An introduction to the diary may be read here: Pages: Dream Diary 1975 Introduction to the project

Dream Diary Monday 8 December 1975

Monday 8 December 1975 

Dreamt of meeting Rose. ‘Look at this heather. See how white it is. I phoned up my parents yesterday and told them about them and they laughed.’

            We look at each other’s eyes and then both come together, kissing.

Dream Diary Sunday 7 December 1975

Sunday 7 December 1975

 In a shop. I buy some fruit and then I buy two books, which I think are about study, but they aren’t. I get another one, which is, but I don’t then want it.

 A man says of Frank Zappa: ‘As an artist he has to produce things that are not art.’ [That did get into my autrebiography. See Pages: Robert Sheppard: Words Out of Time Published; https://www.knivesforksandspoonspress.co.uk/product-page/words-out-of-time-by-robert-sheppard-108-pages]

            A tree turns round , Zappa standing with 3 branches coming out of his head, one of which is bleeding. He says, ‘One day reality will overtake me.’ (It’s Zappa’s voice.)

 An introduction to the diary may be read here: Pages: Dream Diary 1975 Introduction to the project

Dream Diary Friday 5 December 1975

Friday 5 December 1975 

Dave (of Frank and Dave [student poets]) said he’d put the handle of his ping pong bat up Judith’s c**t which was very long.

An introduction to the diary may be read here: Pages: Dream Diary 1975 Introduction to the project

Revisiting the British Poetry Revival/Pierre Joris - paper and reading

I talked (and read poetry) at this day conference organised by Robert Hampson of Royal Holloway: Pierre Joris and The British Poetry Revival

6 December 2025: Senate House, University of London, WC1E 7HU

I spoke on 11th June 1965 (which has, of course, been test-driven on this blog recently; indeed, I referred to the blog.

There were great papers in both halves of the day, including  Dr Carl Kears on ‘Bill Griffiths and the Phoenix in Seaham’. Allen Fisher, Robert Hampson, Andrew Duncan (his blog is on my blogroll), Peter Middleton, Andy Spragg and William Rowe; and Nicole Peyafitte on the late (and lamented) Pierre Joris. (His blog is on my blogroll.)

 The day ended with a reading from Allen Fisher, Geraldine Monk and myself. 

A quick drink with old friends, and new, and back on the train to Liverpool. 

ELLE

I read from ELLE, my new 'verse-novel', a week old; from 'Holme Fell', my latest poetry-photo collaboration with Trev Eales (all unpublished); and from Stars: A Comedy Machine (also unpublished, but written about on this blog).

Two posts relevant to my paper are:  Pages: How the British Poetry Revival appears in one history of its times: Dominic Sandbrook’s White Heat. and Pages: The British Poetry Revival again: 11 June 1965: Lee Harwood and John Ashbery write a poem together.

I wrote about Stars here: Pages: On abandoning my transposition of Dante: thoughts and extracts.