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At one level, the poems in British Standards are transpositions of Romantic era sonnets that pay homage to the exuberance and variety of that tradition, whether through examples of well-known poets, from Wordsworth to Clare, or through those of lesser-known practitioners, Mary Robinson to Hartley Coleridge. At another level, these transpositions chart the recent national banana-skin slippage from the hubris of Brexit to the mismanagement of Covid (including the privations and solitudes of lockdown). At both levels, they are satirical and funny, whether British Standard dogging sites are introduced as the sole Brexit benefit, or 'our' hapless prime minister stumbles from indiscretion to disgrace. Between the levels, they vibrate with implication, rock with savage laughter.
Comments on earlier parts of 'The English Strain' project:
'Among contemporary poets, only Sheppard could have achieved this unlikely synthesis; his poetry is learned, scholarly, satirical, outrageous and innovative as well as - most importantly - political.' Alan Baker, Litter
'This book is the sound a man of enlightenment and renaissance makes as he sees the long rich curve of knowledge - our real 'heritage' - being flushed clean down a political shitter...It is utterly brilliant.' Steve Hanson, Manchester Review of Books
'Sheppard is able to form activist responses to the times through which we live without sacrificing his linguistic range.' James Byrne, The Robert Sheppard Companion
'Sheppard posits ... a translational mode that is open, fluid, permissive, voracious and, above all, creative.' Tom Jenks, The Robert Sheppard Companion
Info autore
Robert Sheppard has published many books of both criticism and poetry. The theoretically focused 'The Meaning of Form' (2014) is available from Palgrave, his episodic history of linguistically innovative poetry, 'When Bad Times Made for Good Poetry' (2011), is from Shearsman. Poetry includes the long poem 'Complete Twentieth Century Blues' (Salt 2008), a selected poems from Shearsman, 'History or Sleep' (2015), his fictional -poet trilogy 'A Translated Man' (Shearsman 2013), 'Twitters for a Lark' (Shearsman 2017), and 'Doubly Stolen Fire' (Aquifer 2023). His transpositions of canonical sonnets, the 'English Strain' project, is published as 'The English Strain' (Shearsman 2021), 'Bad Idea' (Knives Forks and Spoons 2023) and 'British Standards' (Shearsman, 2024). A book of essays on his work, 'The Robert Sheppard Companion' (Shearsman 2018), outlines these and other activities and publications, including his work in poetics. Sheppard lives in Liverpool and is Emeritus Professor at Edge Hill University.
