Of course, I know that other people have transposed, overdubbed, ‘translated’ and generally re-fitted poems before me (and I’m pretty convinced they will after, as I now turn away from these procedures). Indeed, the first part of my probably finished ‘English Strain’ project, ‘Petrarch 3’, still available separately in the lovely Crater edition, openly acknowledges both the work with Petrarch that Peter Hughes and Tim Atkins attempted, indeed arose out of my studying them, but it also acknowledged fraternal and influencing models, such as Harry Mathews’ ‘Trial Impressions’ and Nicholas Moore’s Spleen. (See here for a batch of such practices: Pages: Peter Riley on my Petrarch 3 and other 'expanded translations' (robertsheppard.blogspot.com) .)
(AND I shall be reading them tomorrow in Manchester: see here: Pages: Robert Sheppard: Reading in Manchester on 9th July 2022 : details and musings)
Here is
another: Refuge from the Ravens: New Lyrical Ballads for the 21st
Century, which takes for ‘inspiration’, if that’s not too passive a word
for such re-functioning (it is too passive a word for this), Wordsworth
and Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads. It is not the work of a single
individual, but comes from Zweibelfish, ‘a
new arts organisation set up in 2021 to work in collaboration with marginalised
people, especially people affected by homelessness.’ Their website is here: Home
page – Zwiebelfish.
Phillip Davenport (one of the three directors), an old friend from Manchester and Bury connections, and one of the poets to read at our curtailed front room reading series, Collected Works, became aware that I was ‘doing’ Wordsworth (some might say ‘doing Wordsworth in’!) in the British Standards part of the ‘English Strain’ project. (I’ve written about that a lot on this blog, but here’s a handful of links specific to the 14 sonnets from 1803 by Wordsworth that got the Sheppard treatment, some of them with videos of the poems:
Pages: Real beginning of new series of 'liberties' taken with Wordsworth's sonnets (temporary post of The English Strain' series) (robertsheppard.blogspot.com) Not all of these have been linked to much before and they are different from the ones on Zweibelfish!)
Phil sent me some materials from his workshops and writing sessions with his homeless writers and asked me for a sample poem (and video) and to say a little about my project, and to compare to his. The poem is my version of England! The time is come when thou shouldst wean, which begins ‘Britain, the time is now to wean yourself from’, which indicates a little of how I overdub.
My piece is entitled Wordsworth’s Sonnets Transposed for the 21st Century, (probably soon a book) which borrows from the Zwibelfish title, and I express my ‘awe’ at their giving voice to the marginalised of the new homeless of the Wordsworth’s beloved North West, as well as outlining what I was up to.
You may now read that HERE: Transposed! Robert Sheppard – Zwiebelfish
Thanks to Phil for asking me and for posting me! If I’ve done anything, I hope I call attention to his project, and to the myriad ways that transposition can work, including with groups – and groups of marginalised people. They produced art and song too in response to Wordsworth.
‘The English Strain’ is in three books, two of them published so far, The English Strain (Shearsman, 2021) and Bad Idea (Knives Forks and Spoons, 2021). I talk about thinking I’ve finished the project (I had a few more poems to add, in fact, but don’t worry about that here:
https://robertsheppard.blogspot.com/2021/04/transpositions-of-hartley-coleridge-end.html
