Here at the Institute we’re only slowly emerging from the difficulties of coronavirus lock-down exhaustion and its various aftermaths. As we gather strength for new work, here’s a look back at one of our exciting publications, an anthology of writing gathered in honour of Robert Hampson and published jointly with the Poetics Research Centre, Royal Holloway, University of London.

The book is a handsome size (18cm x 25 cm.), 80 pages, with a mix of poetry and prose, mostly poetry, by friends and colleagues of Robert Hampson, mostly associated with the London poetry scene and people who have come from the M.A. in Poetic Practice led by Redell Olsen at Royal Holloway. The book was designed and set by Redell Olsen and she also curated the book.

There’s an exciting list of contributors and the work included in the book includes some prose, notably the longer essay by William Rowe entitled ‘For a prosody of real time’. Other pieces reflect, directly and indirectly, on Robert’s contribution to poetry and poetic practice, such as this glimpse of Adrian Clarke’s contribution:

There’s also a range of material in colour that hints at explorations of poetry in the expanded field of poetics, such as this glimpse of work by Paula Claire.

And this extract from work by Alison Gibb:

And here’s another glimpse of work with a visual emphasis, by Ryan Ormonde:

Lots of fine work gathered in an extended conversation. All in all, the book offers an engaging tribute to the range of Robert’s contribution and although it was assembled to mark the moment of his retirement from full time work at Royal Holloway, Robert’s been busier than ever since then on all fronts and brings new meaning to what it means to work “full” time. Robert, we salute you: bravo! encore!