Yet Another New Book: Unfinish
published by Veer: only £5.
Buy it here and see more of the text.
It contains 8 prose pieces:
‘Theses’, eight quotations to orient the book and introduce
the theme of ‘human unfinish’ which appers also in Warrant Error and Berlin
Bursts.
‘Bad Poems for Bad People!’, is a response to parts of Sean
Bonney’s keynote at the Conversify Conference, Edinburgh, 9-11th
September 2011 (though not to the exemplary readings of Rimbaud therein, but in
anticipation of the publication of Happiness,
and certainly before the completion of his PhD on Amiri Baraka, which I had the
pleasure to read in 2012). It was first performed as the finale to my Berlin Bursts reading at the Bluecoat’s
Chapter & Verse literature festival, Liverpool,
on 16th October 2011. It was first published in Intercapillary Space at intercapillaryspace.
blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/robert-sheppard-bad-poems-for-bad-people.html in 2012. It’s also twinned with the paper I wrote and delivered at the
conference, ‘Notes on Form, Forms and Forming and the Antagonisms of Reality in
Criticism, Poetics and Poetry’, which may be read on Pages blogzine, at robertsheppard.blogspot.co.uk
/2014/04/robert-sheppard-form-forms-and-forming.html.
‘Venus and Adonis’ is a compressed
prose piece.
‘In Unadopted Space’ is a
poem-essay on the nature of space (a theme I need to return to at some time).
‘Comrade Ivan Ivanovich’s Book of
Solid Kremlins and Melting Cromlechs’ is a history of Russia since
the Revolution, somewhat compressed.
‘Interlude’ is an interlude.
‘Portrait and Portals’ was published, with images by
Patricia Farrell, on the online part of the anthology The Dark Would, edited by Phil Davenport, Manchester: Apple Pie Editions, 2013. Part of
this has been adopted as the cover image, see above. For The Dark Would see here.
‘Excitation for Jo Blowers’ was
first performed, in a performance text version, as a work-in-progress, at the
Friends of cris cheek evening at the Bluecoat, Liverpool, 25th June
2013, by Jo Blowers and Mary Prestidge (dance), and Robert Sheppard and
Patricia Farrell (voice). More on work with Jo here and here.
Jo Blowers performing 'Excitation' at the Bluecoat in 2013 More books by me here |