Robert Sheppard

Reading on the importance of the hyphen, I encounter the phrase 'first hand job experience'.

For love—I would split open your head and put a candle in behind the eyes. Love is dead in us if we forget the virtues of an amulet and quick surprise.

The Warning, Robert Creeley

Wild Twin collage, old and ripped postcard of Amsterdam, typed notes, handwritten notes, ink, paint, pastels, dark circle in centre, rubber stamped word ‘ghost’

Wild Twin. The collage that became the book.

Saved by Stoppard Sir, In 1993 my wife and I went to see the first production of Arcadia by Tom Stoppard (obituary, Dec I), and in the interval I experienced a Damascene conversion. As a clinical scientist I was trying to understand the enigma of the behaviour of breast cancer, the assumption being that it grew in a linear trajectory spitting off metastases on its way. In the first act of Arcadia, Thomasina asks her tutor, Septimus: "If there is an equation for a curve like a bell, there must be an equation for one like a bluebell, and if a bluebell, why not a rose?" With that Stoppard explains chaos theory, which better explains the behaviour of breast cancer. At the point of diagnosis, the cancer must have already scattered cancer cells into the circulation that nest latent in distant organs. The consequence of that hypothesis was the birth of "adjuvant systemic chemotherapy", ", and rapidly we saw a striking fall of the curve that illustrated patients' survival. Stoppard never learnt how many lives he saved by writing Arcadia. Michael Baum Professor emeritus of surgery; visiting professor of medical humanities, UCL r.

Alt text for those who need it. This is amazing.

Klorolle (1965)

A familiar and undervalued object taken to the level of Chardin

Gerhard Richter show
Foundation Louis Vuitton, Paris
Familie am Meer (1964)

Disconcertingly, the people are more three-dimensional, more real, than they could possibly have been in the original snapshot.

An angry confrontation and online abuse: Inside the asylum protests in a divided town A Disclosure documentary uncovers the figures behind the protests around asylum hotels which have divided communities.

Every time you read about these protests it's evident that the proportion of men who are a danger to women is far higher among the women's safety protesters than among the asylum seekers. Glad to see John Watt being highlighted here, a women's safety advocate convicted of multiple assaults of women.

Liverpool walking poetics.

Stencil graffiti of a statue of Jesus Christ, spray painted on to what looks like a concrete bollard type of structure. Behind this there is abundant green grass. Photo taken at the former Everton Village now Everton Park, 13th July 2024.

New on Futch Journal: 'To the Post Office, God is a Hook in the Sky' by Andrew Taylor @dradny.bsky.social www.futchpress.info/post/to-the-... 📮📯"After reading the original Thomas De Quincey 1803 diary in June, I was taken by the drafts and notes De Quincey made for his letters."

Every December for the past ten years I have told myself that this will be the month I dive back in. But it’s so vast. The geography of it. The landscape.

YouTube video by generoix Charles Olson reads 'Maximus to Gloucester, Letter 27 [withheld]' (Mar 1966)

No-one read poems like Olson: youtu.be/gAYxpSjkyAg?...

What the hell is this? Is it a memoir, a history, a handbook for poets, a guide to publishing or advice on how to write when your muse has died? Whatever he writes about Finch is always so engaging, fallibly human and unfailingly humorous. A book destined to become essential reading for writers.

Apparently Spielberg asked Tom Stoppard to write the screenplay for Jaws, but Tom said he couldn’t as he was writing a play for the BBC.

"I'm offering you a fortune to collaborate with me on a Hollywood blockbuster, and you turn me down to write a play for BBC TV?"

"No," Tom said, "BBC Radio."

OU placed a graduate student instructor on leave after a student publicly contested a grade and filed an illegal discrimination claim after she received a failing grade on an essay that cited the Bible. According to a statement released Sunday, the university wrote it is taking these concerns seriously and has begun a full review of the situation. “The University of Oklahoma takes seriously concerns involving First Amendment rights, certainly including religious freedoms. Upon receiving notice from the student on the grading of an assignment, the University immediately began a full review of the situation and has acted swiftly to address the matter,” the statement read.

Oklahoma University has placed a grad student instructor on admin leave for failing a psychology paper on gender for citing *the Bible* as a source of empirical evidence.

In response, OU has placed on instructor on admin leave citing, get this, the FIRST AMENDMENT.

Universities are cooked.

#IronMenCrosby Advent Calendar Day 1
A brilliant afternoon to enrich the senses down at Crosby beach. The roar of the sea, the call of gulls and the ever changing light as the sun played hide and seek in the fast moving clouds, rays of golden light spreading out across the water.

My book would make a terrible Christmas present, so why not buy it for yourself?! robertsheppard.blogspot.com/2025/11/elle...

Susie Campbell (@susiecampbell) Winter 2025 (34) issue of Long Poem Magazine is out now and is a cracking issue. So many extraordinary and powerful pieces to explore from Peter Oswald's 'The Defence of the Mercure Hotel' (which I wo...

substack.com/@susiecampbe...

Thank you to Jonathan Coe (The Proof of My Innocence) for selecting Paris Fantastique by Nicholas Royle for the Observer’s ‘Writers recommend: the best books of 2025’ feature: observer.co.uk/culture/books/article/writers-recommend-the-best-books-of-2025

Charles Olson.

All the president’s millions: how the Trumps are turning the presidency into riches From Vietnam to the Balkans, Donald Trump’s family has launched a global dealmaking blitz since his re-election

Subscribe to @theguardian.com
Where else are you going to find a story such as this one:

All the president’s millions: how the Trumps are turning the presidency into riches www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...

My poem out of her previous album: poem 2; www.littermagazine.org/2025/11/robe...

Most academics strongly opposed to using AI in REF 2029 While new technologies seen as ‘game changer’ for national-level research assessment, study finds vehement opposition, particularly among humanities scholars

'The report, led by the University of Bristol and funded by Research England, found that some universities are already using generative AI to assess the quality of their research.' 1/3

I have found this whole episode incredibly distressing and isolating, so I'm grateful to see Rory Waterman's analysis shine a light on both the poetry and the poison. Whatever your views, we need a more courteous and humane public discourse, from and for all parties. Please.

I was the other poet in the Len Pennie row: here’s my story Sarah Doyle’s poem Laika won high praise but when she queried similarities to it with the poem Good Girl she was caught up in a storm of accusation, denial and online vitriol

A lot of people should be ashamed, having behaved disgracefully.

Congratulations, @poetsarahdoyle.bsky.social. This shows immense character:

www.thetimes.com/uk/scotland/...

I also wrote about this, for PNR:

www.pnreview.co.uk/archive/rema...

But read Sarah's if you only have time for one.

Tom Stoppard, playwright of dazzling wit and playful erudition, dies aged 88 A theatrical sensation since the 1960s, whose dramas included Arcadia, The Real Thing and Leopoldstadt, Stoppard also had huge success as a screenwriter The playwright Tom Stoppard, whose playful erudition dazzled the theatregoing world for decades, has died aged 88. One of a select band of writers from any discipline to earn his own adjective – “Stoppardian” – in the Oxford English Dictionary, he delighted in the most improbable juxtapositions: philosophy and gymnastics in Jumpers (1972); early 19th-century landscape gardening and chaos theory in Arcadia (1993); rock music, dissident Czech academics and the love poetry of Sappho in Rock ’n’ Roll (2006). Continue reading...

Tom Stoppard, playwright of dazzling wit and playful erudition, dies aged 88

The so-called Russell Group upholding the highest standards, as per

ELLE: A VERSE NOVEL is now published My new book  Elle: A Verse Novel  is now published by Broken Sleep Books   Details for ORDER:  Robert Sheppard - Elle, a Verse Novel | Bro...

ELLE is officially published today. So here's an updated post with a little video or verse one, and links to the publisher and to previous posts about the 'project': robertsheppard.blogspot.com/2025/11/elle...

I enjoyed Aaon's reading from this book. I remember not liking his work in the 1990s, but now they just seem fresh and funny! (Broken Sleep online launch...)

I enjoyed the 'film of the book' last night on the Broken Sleep online launch.

I enjoyed these poems when I took part in the online launches of this book and the rest of the November bunch (including mine). Last night.