Two new books by Robert Sheppard from Shearsman

BERLIN BURSTS (poems)

These new poems feature territories as dispersed as Sheppard’s local Capital of Culture and the global city of division and political murder of the title poem. Yet a series of metapoems brings agency and wonder to the idea of the poem, always seeing the world as well as itself, in perceptual double-takes that tease away at the meaning of the poetic act
At the centre of the collection is ‘Six Poems Against Death’ whose lyric imperative hovers before the portals of the unknown to embrace human unfinish as the condition of our survival.

Ian Davidson in Poetry Wales called Sheppard’s Complete Twentieth Century Blues ‘a major poem of serious intent’; Alan Baker in Litter called Warrant Error ‘political poetry of the first order’, and John Muckle wrote of ‘this brilliant, disquieting book.’

“Robert Sheppard . . . composed a few words around Liverpool’s status as City of Culture. ‘Their shit’s verdure but that’s OK/ This isn’t a nature poem.’ Sheppard’s near twenty-year epic, Complete Twentieth Century Blues, outweighed the Ringo returns, the showbiz art: he cooked slow and long, with tangy sauces and bits that break the teeth. The city
averted its eyes . . . As if it were the poet’s fault that we want our meat pre-chewed.” -Iain Sinclair

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http://www.shearsman.com/pages/books/catalog/2011/sheppardBB.html

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WHEN BAD TIMES MADE FOR GOOD POETRY (criticism)

This study presents an episodic history of an epic period in British poetry, when bad times forced political subversion and textual impaction upon its central figures and provisional institutions. Episodes cover the Poetry Wars of the 1970s; the centrality of Bob Cobbing as poetry activist and the SubVoicive poetry scene in 1980s London; he also writes individual chapters on the poetry and poetics of Allen Fisher, Tom Raworth, Iain Sinclair, John Hall, Ken Edwards, and Maggie O’Sullivan.

“A landmark study.” -Benjamin Keatinge reviewing The Poetry of Saying in The European English Messenger

Order from the Shearsman online store and read more at:
http://www.shearsman.com/pages/books/catalog/2011/sheppardWBT.html
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Order from The Book Depository