I have a second review of the more or less simultaneously appearing two first books of my ‘English Strain’ project, The English Strain and Bad Idea on the Tears in the Fence website.
It is by Clark Allison.
Among
other things, Clark says: ‘I’d say what we find is a considerable amount of
libidinal energy and direction hewn according to the formal model of the sonnet
form, so we get a fascinating mixture of the eruptive and the contained
coterminously. There’s also a good amount not just of Westminster politics here
but also gender relational controversies, which might be particularly fitting
given the sonnet’s role as a mode for finding courtly favour. And a mite unlike
Boccaccio, Petrarch was often studious and exacting, that is that the form must
have it to the end. It is as if Sheppard is addressing this language by testing
how suitable and appropriate it is to our times, which indeed it remains so, or
not far off, perhaps more Machiavelli than Dante, however. It is a very
effective trawl through history. But Sheppard throughout is agile, not easily
pinned down.’
References
to some of my many and much appreciated appearances in Tears in the Fence as a poet
may be found here, including my most recent, in the current issue, which appropriately features two poems from British
Standard (the recently completed third part of ‘The English Strain’ project):
Pages:
Two new poems from British Standards published in Tears in the Fence 73
(robertsheppard.blogspot.com)
Clark Allison has followed the public temporary appearances of sonnets from this ‘strain’ on Pages for a number of years now. To not receive an email about a recent post made me wonder if he was unwell! My periodicity (my temporary posting, which I've not done before) has actually been referred to in a piece in relation to the temporal progression of Brexit here, by Jamie Toy, in Versopolis: https://www.versopolis.com/arts/to-read/792/moving-but-also-staying-the-same
See also my reaction to that: https://robertsheppard.blogspot.com/2019/06/jamie-toys-versopolis-essay-moving-but.html
Read the first review of these two conjoined books, by Alan Baker, in Litter here: Review - "The English Strain" and "Bad Idea" by Robert Sheppard | Litter (littermagazine.com)
Read the third review, by Steve Hanon, in the Manchester
Review of Books, here:
Read about ‘The English Strain’ Book One, The English Strain here , and about Book Two, Bad Idea here . I write about finishing Book Three (with links to its constituent parts) here: https://robertsheppard.blogspot.com/2021/04/transpositions-of-hartley-coleridge-end.html
Book
One, The English Strain, is available from Shearsman:
https://www.shearsman.com/store/Sheppard-Robert-c28271934?offset=6
Book
Two, Bad Idea, is available from Knives Forks and Spoons: https://www.knivesforksandspoonspress.co.uk/product-page/bad-idea-by-robert-sheppard-102-pages
https://tearsinthefence.com/2015/11/23/history-or-sleep-by-robert-sheppard-shearsman-books/
My various thanks to David Caddy and crew.
