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Saturday, May 25, 2019
Friday, May 24, 2019
Thursday, May 23, 2019
Tody's EU Election/May in Hiding Poem
The second book of my The
English Strain project (see below for the first and for more details) is entitled
Bad Idea and it is a re-working of
the whole of Michael Drayton’s
sequence Idea; that’s 64 poems (with
the addition of its ‘Address to the Reader of these Sonnets’). I’ve been at it
since July 2018, one a week (more or less).
https://www.knivesforksandspoonspress.co.uk/product-page/hap-understudies-of-thomas-wyatt-s-petrarch-by-robert-sheppard-26-pages
If you ‘do the math’ you can see that I’d run out of the
poems at this rate of progress, in September, but the new Flexibretension is
until 31st October. I need to call a summit of Drayton’s
‘thrice-three Muses’ to discuss possibilities. Another sequence? Or a sort of
standing still by producing multiple versions of a particular sonnet on the
way? Or could I locate more of Drayton’s ‘Idea’ poems not included in the 1619
edition? Or have a summer recess, like the MPs will: ‘time for a last visa-free
Euro recess: British disdain amongst the scattered hegemonies,’ as the poem
says! The idea of Bad Idea originally
was that it would pass through Brexitday and onto the other side, where it
might gather some positivities.
I’m posting the poems temporarily, so there is only ever one
at a time on this blog. Here’s today’s. I’m pleased to say ‘West Kirby UKip I
pointed and said “Fascist!”’ did happen, on Tuesday, as it happens.
XLV
Ministers sadly sit outside May’s bolted door,
yet she is deaf and will not hear their fears.
Ledsom breaks her news, panting with passion.
Since May distains to talk to the swivel-eyed,
the meme from Downfall
can’t be re-mimed, yet.
She’s assured that tenacity will be her legacy;
every defeated Tory in the EU poll will tug her hearse,
wherein the world will soon entomb her name.
Senseless West Kirby UKip I pointed and said ‘Fascist!’
Idea cannot admit pleasure until desire has played out
the crisis of the nation amid trans-national Capital. Like
Orpheus I sing through the wood-wide-web, vote Green;
Idea yells at Yaxley-Lennon strutting in Bootle.
She’s kinder to a fascist than,
silent, she is to me!
23rd May 2019
Poor old Drayton is somewhat out of print at the moment, though
I have found a ‘Poly-Olbion’ project online, (the whole epic is online, which
is refreshing), and his fine sonnet sequence ‘Idea’ (the 1619 version) is
available online, including the one I’ve just translated above; have a look at
both, the latter being:
Drayton, Michael. ‘Idea.’ in Arundell Esdaile, ed. Daniel’s Delia and Drayton’s Idea.
London: Chatto and Windus: 1908. 67-141; online at Luminarium: http://www.luminarium.org/editions/idea.htm
London: Chatto and Windus: 1908. 67-141; online at Luminarium: http://www.luminarium.org/editions/idea.htm
Although I am using
Tuley, Mark. ed. Elizabethan
Sonnet Cycles: Five Major Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles: by Samuel Daniel, Michael
Drayton, Sir Philip Sidney, William Shakespeare and Edmund Spenser. Crescent
Moon Publishing, Maidstone: Kent,
2010,
a careless book that even misses one sonnet out!
In fact, I’ve now bought
Evans, Maurice, ed. Revised by Roy J. Booth. Eizabethan Sonnets. London
and North Clarendon: Phoenix
Paperback, 2003,
a careful book that includes the 1619 Idea entire (with original orthography) and has notes.
You know, if you’ve seen these temporary posts before, that
you may read about the whole ‘English Strain’ project in a post that has links
to some other accounts, and earlier parts, of this work: here. That was 100 poems long. But I
didn’t stop there though. The most recent instalment of it, Hap: Understudies of Thomas Wyatt’s Petrarch
is now available from Knives Forks and Spoons here:
I write about my sonnets generally here,
and here
and see here
and here for more on my Petrarch
obsession, which ‘The English Strain’ project into motion.
There are more excerpts from The English Strain in the current Poetry Wales. And another 4 in The Robert Sheppard Companion:
HERE'S SOME NEW POEMS ONLINE: I am pleased to say I have six poems published in BlazeVOX 19, edited by Geoffrey Gatza, four
of them poems from ‘The English Strain’ project, versions of the Sussex
sonneteer Charlotte Smith, called Elegaic
Sonnets. You may get straight to the pages here:
Another from this part, another Charlotte Smith variation may
be read in Smithereens 2, on page 15:
Links to a number of the published poems from Non Disclosure Agreement (the last part
of the proposed book of The English Strain)
may be accessed here:
Some older ‘English Strain’ poems may be found here:
I’m pleased to say three poems from Bad Idea have now appeared in Monitor
on Racism. Patricia Farrell’s two images of Bo accompany them. Find them
here. http://monitoracism.eu/from-bad-idea/
Wednesday, May 22, 2019
poems from The English Strain (sonnets) and Empty Diaries (2017 and 2018) published in BlazeVOX
I am pleased to say I have six poems published in BlazeVOX 19, edited by Geoffrey Gatza, a
press as well as a magazine (http://www.blazevox.org). Thanks Geoffrey!
The six poems come from 2 sequences, but they are linked by being somewhat excessive! Probably best way to navigate is via the editorial page/ index
and then you can see what other goodies are on offer, though
you may get straight to the pages here:
You will see I have four poems from ‘The English Strain’ project,
versions of the Sussex
sonneteer Charlotte Smith, called Elegaic
Sonnets.
Another of these may be read in Smithereens 2, on page 15:
BUT I also have two of the recent episodes from my
continuation, into the 21st Century, of my Empty Diaries project. All the 20C parts are, logically enough, in Twentieth Century Blues,
where you can read the one for 1993, ‘Flesh Mates on Dirty
Errands’.
On BlazeVOX you
may read ‘Empty Diary 2017’ and ‘Empty Diary 2018’
The latter I read at the launch of The Robert Sheppard Companion, because it seemed to be the most cited work of mine in it, especially by Joanne Ashcroft ‘A Response to Vitality’. (see here for that night: https://robertsheppard.blogspot.com/2019/04/the-launch-of-robert-sheppard-companion.html.
The latter I read at the launch of The Robert Sheppard Companion, because it seemed to be the most cited work of mine in it, especially by Joanne Ashcroft ‘A Response to Vitality’. (see here for that night: https://robertsheppard.blogspot.com/2019/04/the-launch-of-robert-sheppard-companion.html.
The 2015 one was published in India by Ranjit Hoskote at Poetry
at Seagam. Empty Diary 2015
Other 21C 'Empty Diaries' may be accessed here;
Other 21C 'Empty Diaries' may be accessed here;
I write about my sonnets generally here,
and here
and see here
and here for more on my Petrarch
obsession, which ‘The English Strain’ project into motion.
Links to a number of the published poems from Non Disclosure Agreement (the last part
of the proposed book of The English Strain)
may be accessed here:
Tuesday, May 21, 2019
Monday, May 20, 2019
The Robert Sheppard Companion: My appreciation
I want to semi-formally remark how much I appreciate the
work that has gone into the editing, the writing and the publishing of this
wonderful and substantial critical work on my writings. I provided the headache
– to quote Beckett – but the contributors provided the aspirin. I also know,
having edited a similar book on Lee Harwood, and having written literary
critical chapters to similar collections (as the detailed bibliography, another
wonder, shows!), just how much work goes into this kind of writing. It is good
to see new essays rubbing shoulders with ones that were written in previous
years (and decades), and to see some reminiscences alongside critique. Although
I am the focus and occasion for the book, it is also a portrait of a
collaborative poetry scene, and many of the contributors are poets also, and
part of that.
For the record, I should say that I have read the book from
cover to cover (and had so before the launch; see here for an account) and found it a fascinating read.
Of course, I read the book as no other person can. But just as I believe that,
as a writer, one mustn’t believe one’s own publicity, one mustn’t believe other
people’s. Or rather: the essays should not function as publicity at all, so far as I
am concerned, but as spurs for me to do better.
I do have a tongue in cheek reference to the book, in one
poem from my current project, my Brexit versions of the poetry of Michael
Drayton called Bad Idea. The speaker is partly MD, partly me, and partly a modern-day Drayton.
While the first five lines allude to chapters in the book, the sixth is a
certain modern critic’s negative characterisation of Twentieth Century Blues. I hope it amuses. 'XLII The Michael
Drayton Companion (1619)' begins:
Some like my multiform methods,
and commend my social poetics.
Some say I’m a funny old translator,
‘expanded’ like a supersized codpiece.
Some that I excel in explicit vitality....
Sunday, May 19, 2019
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