ON THIS DAY 2020, as coronavirus began to rage, I wrote ‘Great men have been among us; hands that penned’ which was later published on the Poetry and Covid website, here: Six Poems (poetryandcovid.com)
But here’s the poem again, in case you missed it. Perhaps for comfort (with the references to poets whose poems I had transposed before) I looked back, before looking ahead. Bo was still crying libertarian nonsense in the face of a pandemic.
Now Viral Men have been among us, hands
unwashed, tongues speckled with disease,
I yearn for touchy-feely Drayton, Browning, Smith,
vain Surrey, wicked Wyatt, minatory Milton,
and the moral of their sonnets of selfhood,
environment and socius, transposed (by me!),
before this Age of Self-Isolation and social
distance, Bo’s ‘inalienable free-born right to go
to the pub’, reluctantly, frozen. France,
trussed in transnational infection-data exchange,
perpetual empty boulevards in lockdown, is all virus
and no genius. As Bo says: ‘We live in a land
of liberty, but we rule nothing out.’ Nothing
fills his want of the skilled low paid like nothing.
21st March 2020
This poem
comes from British Standards, which you can read about here: Pages: The final sonnet transposition from John Clare
(robertsheppard.blogspot.com)
British Standards is the third book of the ‘English Strain’ project. You may read about the first book and second book here. Indeed, you may now buy them.
Book One, The
English Strain is described here
(on a post that was written before it gained its title!).
I am delighted to say that Book One, The English Strain is available from Shearsman; see here:
https://www.shearsman.com/store/Sheppard-Robert-c28271934?offset=6
I am also delighted
to say that Book Two, Bad Idea is available from Knives Forks and
Spoons; see here: https://www.knivesforksandspoonspress.co.uk/product-page/bad-idea-by-robert-sheppard-102-pages
