If I found it difficult to describe my latest book, Doubly Stolen Fire, hiding behind the word ‘hybrid’, have a thought for poor reviewers (a trade I’ve indulged in to excess in the past: see bibliography: Full Bibliography - Robert Sheppard (weebly.com)). I eventually managed to find ways of doing it (for example, Pages: Doubly Stolen Fire (a new book of hybrid texts) is now OUT (robertsheppard.blogspot.com)), but it was always easier to deal with one part of it at a time (the bit about Malcolm Lowry, here: Pages: Launch of Doubly Stolen Fire at the Lowry Lounge 2023, Liverpool (set list) (robertsheppard.blogspot.com); or the bit about the Ern Malley Hoax, there: Pages: Performance of the Ern Malley Orchestra and launch of Doubly Stolen Fire (robertsheppard.blogspot.com)). Tellingly, I seem to be launching it, chapter by chapter.
Buy the
book straight from the publisher: HERE: Robert
Sheppard: Doubly Stolen Fire – Glasfryn Project.
ONE Billy Mills is the first off the blocks, as so often, on his excellent blog. I link to it on my blog roll (whoever thought of that term?); see to the right of this post.
Beginning, and offering links (you may have noticed how much I like links, a habit from the days of assembling Twentieth Century Blues), he notes ‘Robert Sheppard’s Doubly Spoken Fire is, in part at least, the third and final part of his ‘fictional poetry project’, the first two parts of which I reviewed here and here (In hindsight, I was far too dismissive of this book at the time).’ I liked his harsh treatment of those volumes, and I like his ‘in part at least’, which is true: this may have run the ‘fictional poetry project’ into the ground (or it may not, I’ll cheekily hint, perhaps falsely) but there are lots of other bits. Billy is forced to be descriptive as well as evaluative. I’ll say no more about it, but simply thank Billy (I know how much work is involved in reviewing, which may be the reason I do less of it), and give you the link to it:
Recent Reading January 2024: A Review – Elliptical Movements (wordpress.com)
I’ll add some more reviews, if there are any. In the meantime, here’s an X feed tweeting the sayings of a talking mongoose, highly relevant to my ‘Rectophonic Monologue’! Billy found this too. I guess I’ll have to follow: (4) Gef the Mongoose (@gefbot) / X (twitter.com)
TWO A second review has been written by Rupert Loydell, and posted on the Tears in the Fence . It is a case of Rupert dishing up my own medicine to me. It's great fun, though: at Doubly Stolen Fire by Robert Sheppard (Aquifer) | Tears in the Fence
Locating Robert Sheppard: books: Pages: Robert Sheppard: seeing what's in print and
what's not!; email: robertsheppard39@gmail.com; website: www.robertsheppard.weebly.com Follow on Twitter
(or X): Robert Sheppard (@microbius) / Twitter ; latest
blogpost: www.robertsheppard.blogspot.com
