Crater Press's Richard Parker hits the bullseye: 'Robert Sheppard's spotted a gap in the market—the insatiable need for loads of versions of Petrarch 3!'
Petrarch 3 is Crater 36: buy here.
The Complete Petrarchs of our time and poetics are splendid, but what happens if you dig down and realise version after version of just one sonnet (Petrarch’s third in this case), stuttering in repetition, re-staging it for voice and situation, from a Scouse dog at Christmas (see below) to Jimmy Savile beyond the grave; a twittersonnet or a lengthy semantic poetry translation; a French Symbolist version or a Middle English sonnet? Robert Sheppard’s pamphlet is what happens, leaving a performance of humour, excess, variation, and an uncanny undersong courtesy of Petrarch himself.
These poems came about writing a chapter on Peter Hughes’
and Tim Atkins’ Petrarch collecteds.See here (and read my notes on the Petrarch variations by Peter Hughes and Tim Atkins here, ).
Read the 'original' translation (if you see what I mean) and the doggie version here.
Read the 'original' translation (if you see what I mean) and the doggie version here.
There’s even one in the style of Wayne Pratt here. (I also explain who Wayne Pratt was/is!)
And you can watch me read some of my 'Petrarch' variations during a reading here
BUT you’ll need to buy the new unfolding/folding 'pamphlet' to access the additional delights of the BDSM Petrarch (see below), the mysterious 1401 sonnet (before Wyatt!), a semantic poetry translation in the style of Stefan Themerson, a twittersonnet, ‘Empty Diary 1327’, Jimmy Savile’s last love poem, a sonnet for a Babestation Babe, not 1, not 2, not 3, but 4 French Symboliste versions, and even a National Poetry Day poem. Versioning gone mad.
BUT you’ll need to buy the new unfolding/folding 'pamphlet' to access the additional delights of the BDSM Petrarch (see below), the mysterious 1401 sonnet (before Wyatt!), a semantic poetry translation in the style of Stefan Themerson, a twittersonnet, ‘Empty Diary 1327’, Jimmy Savile’s last love poem, a sonnet for a Babestation Babe, not 1, not 2, not 3, but 4 French Symboliste versions, and even a National Poetry Day poem. Versioning gone mad.
BIG THANKS to Richard Parker. Remember Crater published Tim
Atkins’ COMPLETE PETRARCH' so he's the one who spotted a 'gap in the market'. I knew this derivative derive (as I call it) was asking for the very trouble it provides! It's dated 'January 2016' but it's out, now, January 2017! Read the first review here.
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| 'Why don't they leave me alone?' |
I have a post with some links about my sonnet writing here, both the past and the unpublished (untitled: 'The Song Nets' is not a great title, and 'First Sight; Last Look' is too Ian McEwan).
I have
written in detail about the writing of Petrarch 3 (see https://robertsheppard.blogspot.com/2020/09/practice-led-piece-on-petrarch-3-from.html
)
