The first poem is deliberately dated Maundy Thursday 2019, which is a year ago today, of course, and I was then looking back to the last poem in the first book of ‘The English Strain’ project, which is dated Easter 2018, but name-checks ‘pauperising Maundy monarchs’. (That poem was published recently, too: see here:
https://robertsheppard.blogspot.com/2020/03/robert-sheppard-four-poems-from-non.html
)
Easter is important to the Petrarchan tradition, because, on Good Friday, 1327, Petrarch (supposedly) first laid eyes on Laura (who mysteriously appears in poem 40 today!). So all roads lead to Petrarch and all roads lead to Maundy Thursday or Good Friday.
Another poem, 'The Michael Drayton Companion (1619)' is really about The Robert Sheppard Companion, although I fuse my fate with his. I read it at the launch of the book (see here about both the book and here about the launch, at which I read this poem!).
Thanks Dan!
Daniele Pantano has appeared on this blog, here. Has his own site, HERE. My ‘English Strain’ project is illustrated by two posts about the background to the project: one that looks back at Book One, The English Strain here and another at Book Two, Bad Idea here , which is what has been excerpted in this showing.
The links above themselves have further links to online poems from Bad Idea.
In ‘Petrarch 3’, the opening part of Book One,
the transpositions are achieved by having 14 versions of one translation from
Petrarch, including ‘Empty Diary 1327’, though the poem that is transformed
itself mentions that fateful Good Friday espial, on the darkest day of the
Christian calendar. This part of Book One, ‘Petrarch 3’, is published under
that title. Another part is published as Hap which ab(uses) the Petrarchan
versions of Thomas Wyatt. Both pamphlets are still available.
Look here and here for
more on my Petrarch obsession/project, including how to purchase Petrarch 3
from Crater Press in its ‘fold out map’ edition. Hap: Understudies of Thomas
Wyatt’s Petrarch is available from
Knives Forks and Spoons here:
https://www.knivesforksandspoonspress.co.uk/product-page/hap-understudies-of-thomas-wyatt-s-petrarch-by-robert-sheppard-26-pages
The Robert Sheppard Companion may be read about and purchased here.
But in the meantime, read the 5 poems (and others accumulating) at The Abandoned Playground.
The Robert Sheppard Companion may be read about and purchased here.
But in the meantime, read the 5 poems (and others accumulating) at The Abandoned Playground.
Book
One of ‘The English Strain’ project, The English Strain, is available
from Shearsman Books here:
https://www.shearsman.com/store/Sheppard-Robert-c28271934?offset=6
Book
Two, Bad Idea is available from Knives Forks and Spoons, HERE: https://www.knivesforksandspoonspress.co.uk/product-page/bad-idea-by-robert-sheppard-102-pages
