Robert Sheppard has been at the forefront of innovative poetry since the 1980s. From early contact with Bob Cobbing, Robert Creeley, and Lee Harwood, and a rejection of Movement orthodoxy, Sheppard quickly began to form/reform our perceptions of British poetry. This wide-ranging volume celebrates the writings of Sheppard, offering extensive of his work--from poet, to critic, editor, teacher, and inventor. Including contributions from major contemporaries, as well as a new generation of scholarship, The Robert Sheppard Companion situates the remarkable writing life of one of Britain's most imaginative poets.
'Sheppard has been a champion of British poetry that actively resists the complacent and the convenient, the merely competent. That has meant evading bullies who would "banish us," to use Dickinson's phrase. Sheppard's aesthetic justice has never been just for him; his social imagination is at one with poems, essays, teaching, and editing. His work is restlessly agile, generous at heart.' --Charles Bernstein, from 'Preface' to The Robert Sheppard Companion
'[Sheppard's] poetry skews language to takes on big themes and his writing can be seen as comprehensive poetic chronicling of our times on an epic scale culminating in his Complete Twentieth Century Blues. Sheppard's writing is rough, rude, quirky, serious, learned, and never afraid to be humorous. In short it is as irreverent as it is relevant. Finally, his generosity in writing about and promoting the work of others has been unstinting and invaluable, especially in a country which largely chooses to ignore its innovative poets.' -- Geraldine Monk, from 'The Robert Sheppard Roundtable'
'This book shows how far-reaching and generous Sheppard's writing life has been. He has argued and sung for the benefit of an entire community, to keep opening the possibilities of poetry itself. He stands and stands up for the breadth and depth and future of modern poetry. He's written it, written about it, published it; theorized, organised and celebrated. It is not often that innovative practice, political engagement, a thorough knowledge of poetry, and wit are combined in one body of work. But this valuable Companion provides the necessary spread of insights and perspectives to do justice to the extraordinary range of Sheppard's achievements. And that is some achievement in itself.' --Peter Hughes
Byrne, James: - James Byrne is a poet, editor and translator. He edited The Wolf from 2002-2015. With Robert Sheppard, he co-edited Atlantic Drift: An Anthology of Poetry and Poetics (Edge Hill University Press/Arc, 2017). His poetry collections include Everything Broken Up Dances (Tupelo, 2015) and White Coins (Arc Publications, 2015). The Caprices, his next book, includes creative responses to the works of Francisco Goya and will be published by Arc in September 2019. Byrne has taught with Sheppard at Edge Hill University since 2015.
Madden, Christopher: - Christopher Madden is an independent scholar, critic, and writer specialising in narrative studies, poetry and poetics, queer theory, and psychogeography. He has published articles on the queer chronotopes of Annie Proulx's 'Brokeback Mountain', and Holocaust humour in Woody Allen, Shalom Auslaender, and Howard Jacobson. Titles in which his reviews have appeared include The Wolf, PN Review, Holocaust Studies: A Journal of Culture and History, and Textual Practice. His review of Robert Sheppard's Berlin Bursts and subsequent interview for The Wolf led to his involvement in the Robert Sheppard Symposium and indeed to the present volume.
