Saturday, September 05, 2015

Robert Sheppard: Blue Bus Reading (set list)

Set list for the London Reading with Michael Zand, Patricia Farrell and Robert Sheppard on 18th August, 2015 at The Lamb, Lamb’s Conduit Street, the 103rd event in THE BLUE BUS series.

More on Michael here
More on Patricia here
More on me here.
reading at the Blue Bus in 2012

I read in two sets, the first from my new book Words Out of Time (See here.)

I read

from 'The Given', part one, the introductory poem, 'I remember' (to contrast with the unread 'I don't remember...' litany of the prose that follows; read my talk on writing The Given here); (Read Alan Baker's review of The Given here.)

from 'Arrival', the two short poems announcing the arrival of the rival, again to contrast with the prose which I had read at the Blue Bus the last time I read. (One was the final poem here.)

from 'When', I read the whole of 'Work', the final piece of the book which distends time (and is 'about' or 'round and about' work.

I also read Lee Harwood's 'One, Two, Three', in homage to the man (with whom I read at the Blue Bus, as I was to explain two days later in Brighton).

In the second half I read all of the 'Petrarch 3' sequence. (See here for its inception.) As usual the audience went silent for the Jimmy Savile poem. The presence of dedicatee and semi-onlie begetter Tim Atkins was especially appreciated.  

The other readings were exciting and the evening seemed especially magic, with so many unexpected faces (some of whom I would meet again on the Thursday at the Lee Harwood celebration; see here).