I have been at Edge Hill since 1996 and for all of that time I have been Programme Leader of the MA in Creative Writing, which has been running (under the name Writing Studies) since 1989. I also teach undergraduate poetry modules, as well as supervise some of the growing number of postgraduate research students in Creative Writing (poetry, fiction and life-writing) as well as English students in the area of post-war British and American poetry. I also coordinate the Poetry and Poetics Research Group, which has been meeting here since 1999.
I am a poet-critic, and recent volumes of poetry include Complete Twentieth Century Blues from Salt and Warrant Error from Shearsman.
A prose ‘anti-autobiography, The Given, is published by Knives Forks and Spoons Press.
My critical work includes :
The Poetry of Saying: British Poetry and its Discontents (Liverpool University Press, 2005) and Iain Sinclair (Northcote House, 2007).
I am editor of the Journal of British and Irish Innovative Poetry.
Read our launch pamphlet here.
More personally I edit the literary blogzine Pages, which is archived by the British Library.
I am an advocate for the way writers write about writing, a speculative discourse that is often misread as literary criticism or as autobiographical writing, but which is really a mode of writing quite distinct. I encourage students to read it and produce it, and I am working on a study of this. Part of my thinking on this may be read on PORES journal as ‘The Necessity of Poetics’ .
Read poems from ‘September 12’, the first part of Warrant Error.
More available here >>>
Complete Twentieth Century Blues was reviewed by Todd Thorpe.
Read the review here >>>
Warrant Error has been reviewed by Alan Baker.
Read his review here >>>
The Given has been reviewed by Rupert Loydell.
Read his review here.
I can be seen reading my poems from Twentieth Century Blues here as part of the Other Room Readings in 2008. (On the first clip I read ‘A Dirty Poem and Clean Poem for Roy Fisher’, ‘From a Stolen Book’ followed by a selection from ‘Empty Diaries’, the sequence with which I continues on the second video.)
I am always keen to answer enquiries from students interested in the MA in Creative Writing and from prospective research students, either of creative writing or of Literature, in the areas of British, Irish or North American innovative poetry or poetics more generally.
I am available for talks and poetry readings.
Other Information
Publications
Critical Books
- Far Language: Poetics and Linguistically Innovative Poetry 1978-1997, Exeter: Stride Research Documents, 1999; second printing 2002
- The Poetry of Saying: British Poetry and its Discontents 1950-2000, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2005
- Iain Sinclair, Writers and Their Work, Plymouth: Northcote House, 2007
- When Bad Times Made for Good Poetry (forthcoming)
Edited Volumes
- Floating Capital: New Poets from London, with Clarke, Adrian, Elmwood, Connecticut: Potes and Poets, 1991
- News for the Ear: a homage to Roy Fisher, with Robinson, Peter, Exeter: Stride 2000
- Salt Companion to Lee Harwood, Cambridge Salt: 2007
- The Door at Taldir: The Selected Poems of Paul Evans, Exeter: Shearsman, 2009
I have published numerous book chapters and referred articles such as ‘Poetics and Ethics: The Saying and the Said in the Linguistically Innovative Poetry of Tom Raworth’, Critical Survey, Vol 14, Number 2, 2002, pp. 75-88, and ‘Public Poetics: The Manifesto of the Poetry Society 1976′ in Poetry and Public Language, eds. Anthony Caleshu and Tony Lopez, Exeter: Shearsman, 2007
Full length Poetry collections
- Daylight Robbery, Exeter: Stride, 1990
- The Flashlight Sonata, Exeter: Stride,1993
- Empty Diaries, Exeter: Stride, 1998
- The Lores, London: Reality Street, 2003
- Tin Pan Arcadia, Cambridge: Salt Publishing, 2004
- Hymns to the God in which my Typewriter Believes, Exeter: Stride, 2006
- Complete Twentieth Century Blues, Cambridge: Salt Publishing, 2008
- Warrant Error, Exeter: Shearsman Books, 2009
- Berlin Bursts (forthcoming)
Pamphlets and shorter publications
- Dedicated to you but you weren’t listening, London: Writers Forum, 1979
- Returns, London:Textures,1985
- Private Number, London: Northern Lights Publishers, 1986
- Letter from the Blackstock Road, London: Oasis Books, 1988
- Internal Exile, Southampton: Torque Press,1988
- Codes and Diodes (with Bob Cobbing), London: Writers Forum, 1991
- Fox Spotlights, Cheltenham: The Short Run Press, 1995
- Free Fists (with Patricia Farrell), London: Writers Forum, 1996
- Neutral Drums (with Patricia Farrell), London: Writers Forum, 1999
- Blatent Blather/Virulent Whoops (with Bob Cobbing), London: Writers Forum, 2001
- The Anti-Orpheus: a notebook, Exeter: Shearsman Books, 2004. (Also available as an e-book at www.shearsman. com)
- Risk Assessment (with Rupert Loydell) Damaged Goods, 2006
- The Given, Newton-le-Willows: Knives Forks and Spoons, 2010
Ship of Fools Pamphlets and Artist’s Books
- Mespotamia (with images by Patricia Farrell), London: Ship of Fools, 1987
- Looking North (with images by Patricia Farrell), London: Ship of Fools, 1987
- The Cannibal Club (with Patricia Farrell), London: Ship of Fools, 1990
- Killing Boxes, London: Ship of Fools, London, 1992
- Wayne Pratt: Watering the Cactus – the deathbed edition, 1999 Ship of Fools, London, 1992, revised 1999
- Logos on Kimonos (with images by Patricia Farrell), London: Ship of Fools, 1992 revised ed. 1998
- Seven (with images by Patricia Farrell), London: Ship of Fools, 1992
- Icarus – Having Fallen (with Patricia Farrell), London: Ship of Fools, 1992
- Transit Depots/Empty Diaries (with John Seed [text] and Patricia Farrell [images]), London: Ship of Fools, 1993
- net/(k)not/-work(s), London: Ship of Fools, 1993
- The Book of British Soil (with Patricia Farrell), London: Ship of Fools, 1995
- Soleà for Lorca, Liverpool: Ship of Fools, 1998
- Birthday Boy, A Present for Lee Harwood, ed. with Patricia Farrell, anthology containing poetry by John Ashbery, art by Andrzej Jackowski, and others, 1999
- Depleted Uranium, Liverpool: Ship of Fools, 2001
- 31st April or The Age of Irony, Liverpool, Ship of Fools, 2001
- The End of the Twentieth Century, Liverpool: Ship of Fools, 2002
- The Blickensderfer Punch (with Patricia Farrell), Liverpool: Ship of Fools, 2002
- Turns (with Scott Thurston), Liverpool: Ship of Fools/The Radiator, 2003
- Looking Thru’ A Hole in the Wall (with Patricia Farrell), Liverpool: Ship of Fools, 2010.
Note: Ship of Fools was set up in the mid 1980s by Robert Sheppard and Patricia Farrell for the purpose of publishing their art and text collaborations, though we have used it for other purposes on occasions.
Anthology Appearances include
- The New British Poetry, eds., Allnutt, Gillian; D’Aguiar, Fred; Edwards, Ken; and Mottram, Eric, London: Paladin, 1988, pp. 336-9
- Floating Capital: New Poets from London, ed. Clarke, Adrian, and myself, Elmwood, Connecticut: Potes and Poets Press, USA, 1991, pp. 102-10
- Verbi Visi Voco: a performance of poetry, ed. Griffiths, Bill and Cobbing, Bob, London: Writers Forum, 1992, pp. 225-9
- New British and Irish Writing, West Coat Line Number 17 (29/2) ed. Quartermain, 1995, pp. 85-7, 112
- Other: British and Irish Poetry Since 1970, ed. Caddel, Richard, and Quartermain, Peter, Wesleyan University Press, 1999, pp. 238-42
- Anthology of Twentieth-Century British and Irish Poetry, ed. Tuma, Keith, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001, pp. 866-9
- ‘from September 12’, ed. Swift, Todd, e-book Babylon Burning: 9/11 five years on, at www.nthposition.com/babylonburing911.php
- ‘Small Voice’, in eds. Allen, Tim, and Duncan Andrew, Don’t Start Me Talking, Cambridge: Salt, 2007, pp. 335-6
- Six sonnets in The Reality Street Book of Sonnets, Reality Street: Hastings, 2008.
- ‘A Voice Without’, ‘Not Another Poem’, in ed. Rupert Loydell, Troubles Swapped for Something Fresh:Manifestos and Unmanifestos, Salt: Cambridge, 2009
My poetry has appeared in well over 100 magazines since the 1970s, including: New Statesman, Critical Quarterly, PN Review, The Gig (Canada), Jacket (Australia), Scratch, Alembic, Palantir, Reality Studios, Slow Dancer, Raddle Moon (Canada), Fragmente, Object Permanence, Mirage # 4/Period(ical) # 47 (USA), VLAK, Veer Off, Angel Exhaust. Work is due for publication in Stand.
