My copy of Tears in the Fence 73 has arrived.
Copies are now available at https://tearsinthefence.com/pay-it-forward . I have a couple of related poems published here. Thanks to David Caddy for selecting and thereby juxtaposing them for this outing.
They are both from (different parts) of British Standards, the third book of ‘The English Strain project. One is my re-writing of Shelley’s canonical ‘Ozymandias’. You may read about my lengthy encounters with this text here: Pages: My occasional transposition of Shelley' s 'Ozymandias' appears and disappears (hub post) (robertsheppard.blogspot.com). Such encounters pre-date our contemporary engagements with public statuary and their unsavoury pasts, but my transposition of one of Southey’s poems about slavery brings us closer to home, not to Southey’s slavery-rich Bristol, but to contemporary (or lockdown one) Liverpool. Just so you know, Bold was a slaver, as was Tarleton. One Tarleton family member appears in ‘Tabitha and Thunderer’: see here Pages: My Transpositions of Mary Robinson's sonnets 'Tabitha and Thunderer' are now complete (hub post) (robertsheppard.blogspot.com) though this poem comes from the stylistically various set ’14 Standards’, which I write about here: Pages: Robert Sheppard: 14 Standards from British Strandards is complete as one sonnet appears at the virtual WOW Festival 2020 (hub post).
You can connect to all the news about the project as a whole, here: Pages: My THE ENGLISH STRAIN is published today by Shearsman (robertsheppard.blogspot.com)
Tears in the Fence 73 (73! imagine!) features poetry, prose poetry, multlilingual poetry, translations, flash fiction and fiction from: Mark Russell, Neha Maqsood, Penny Hope, Mandy Pannett, John Freeman, Sandra Galton, Wioletta Greg translated by Maria Jastrzębska and Anna Blasiak, Peter Dent, Alison Lock, Caitlin Stobie, Jeffrey Graessley, Jasmina Bolfek-Radovani, L. Kiew, Mohammad Razai, Alex Barr, Michael Farrell, Olivia Tuck, Paul Rossiter, John Goodby, Maurice Scully, Tim Allen, Lucy Maxwell Scott, Anna-May Laugher, Alexandra Corrin-Tachibana, Mélisande Fitzsimons, Marcia Hindson, Oliver Dixon, Gwen Sayers, Beth Davyson, Steve Spence, Valerie Bridge, S.J. Litherland, Karen Downs-Barton, Frances Presley, Mark Dickinson, Alison Brackenbury, Phil Williams, Rhea Seren Phillips, Oliver Southall, Sarah Salway and Sarah Watkinson.
The critical section consists of Louise Buchler’s Editorial, Jeremy Hilton on Hart Crane, Jeremy Reed on Denise Riley, Mandy Pannett on Sascha A. Akhtar, Geraldine Clarkson, Robert Hampson on Jeanne Heuving, Andrew Duncan on Molly Vogel, Clark Allison on Robin Fulton Macpherson, Walter Perrie, A.L. Kennedy, Guy Russell on Lesley Harrison, Alejandra Pizarnik, Mark Prendergast on Mercè Rodoreda, Siân Thomas on Susie Campbell, Steve Spence on the Plymouth Poetry Scene, David Caddy on Stephanie Burt’s Callimachus, Richard Scholar’s Émigrés, Ric Hool on Mélisande Fitzsimons, and Morag Kiziewicz’s Electric Blue 8.
Tears in the Fence | an independent, international literary magazine
I've appeared in Tears in the Fence a lot over the last 25 (?) years, and here are some of my other appearances and/or responses to the issues:
Pages: Robert Sheppard: 'Between' a poem for Roy Fisher published in Tears in the Fence
Pages: Robert Sheppard sonnets from Bad Idea published in Tears in the Fence 70
