Sheppard is taking his cue from the tumultuous and indeed dangerous days of Henry VIII’s Tudor regime with Thomas Cromwell acting as Chamberlain or chief minister until he met his untimely demise. Wyatt was rumoured to have had an affair with Anne Boleyn and endured a spell of detention in the Tower of London for alleged treason and died young though seemingly not suspiciously.What the reader of this perceptive review doesn't know is that Clark has fallen into the routine of emailling me about nearly all of my temporary postings (on this blog) of the latest poems from 'The English Strain' project, so that we are in a kind of loose dialogue about its progress. It's nice to see him taking stock of an earlier part of the project. Thanks Clark!
See here about how to purchase the book HAP: Understudies of Thomas Wyatt’s Petrarch Knives, Forks and Spoons Press 23 pages £6.50, December 2018, from KFS:
https://www.knivesforksandspoonspress.co.uk/product-page/hap-understudies-of-thomas-wyatt-s-petrarch-by-robert-sheppard-26-pages
You can read about the whole ‘English Strain’ project in a post that has links to some other accounts, and earlier parts,
of this work: here.
Clark's own poetry appeared on this blog when it was more of a blogzine. See here for his
'Mind’s Eye' : https://robertsheppard.blogspot.com/2005/12/clark-allison-minds-eye.html
Steve Spence has reviewed the book on Litter.
here. And there's a third review from The Journal here. Here’s another one: Prince, D.A. ‘Hap
by Robert Sheppard’, on Sphinx: Poetry Pamphlet Reviews and Features: https://www.sphinxreview.co.uk/index.php/946-robert-sheppard-hap-understudies-of-thomas-wyatt-s-petrarch (2020)
