Poem by Sina Queyras

Eyewear thinks Sina Queyras (pictured above) is one of the most refreshing, innovative and provocative poets to appear in North American writing over the last few years, and is glad to welcome her here, today.

She edited the key book, Open Field: Thirty Contemporary Canadian Poets (Persea, 2005), which is one of the first anthologies published in America in the last few decades to consider the new poetry now coming from Canada. She is is the author of Slip (ECW, 2001) and Teeth Marks (Nightwood, 2004).

Her third collection of poetry, Lemon Hound, won the Pat Lowther Award and a Lambda Literary Award. Expressway is due out from Coach House in spring 2009. She is currently writer in residence at the University of Calgary where she is working on several projects including Autobiography of Childhood, a novel.

11.

This happened before. Then we ran. And the cable

hooked us to a big Dish. We signed up for more. Golden

arches nosed up out of concrete and we were delighted.

Everyone bought a Ford or Chrysler. Roads appeared and

women disappeared down them. Millions were served.

Some of them waved. This happened before. Then again

maybe not. Anyhow once we walked to the television.

Once your little sister stood and changed the channel

from 2 to 3, one hand on the antennae. This really

happened. At the end of the line there was a person.

Whole lives ticked by on salaries. Everyone wore

polyester. Blouses with imprints of European landmarks

abounded. People dialed and the numbers rumbled like a

bank vault. Shag appeared in avocado green and harves

tgold penetrating every corner. Coffee tables thickened

over night. Lights morphed into plastic balls hung

from chains. Little girls rhymed couplets, index

finger poised, waiting for the plastic rotary to hit

zero. This really happened. Women clicking on manual

typewriters. Whole offices of scritch, scritch,

scritch and ping, ping, ping as the carriage released

and rolled up. How we embraced the correctable ribbon.

How we coveted white-out. Listen, once people sent

letters with words crossed out. This all happened.

People placed vinyl on turntables and lifted needles

jumping slightly when the scratch blared out of the

cross hatched speakers from Radio Shack or Sears.

Rumors of a Japanese take-over surfaced. There was

talk of importing fathers. Then again maybe I am

lying. Anyone knew it was true. Anyhow we didn't run.

We bought bigger cars and women embraced the MuMu.

Everything was arriving all at once. Lapels sharpened.

Soul music sweetened the air. People drove their cars

to Drive-ins and hung aluminum speakers on the side

windows. How we embraced the wire.

poem by Sina Queyras

IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart? A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional. Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were. For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ? Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets. But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ? How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular. John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se. What do I mean by smart?

"I have crossed oceans of time to find you..."

In terms of great films about, and of, love, we have Vertigo, In The Mood for Love , and Casablanca , Doctor Zhivago , An Officer and a Gentleman , at the apex; as well as odder, more troubling versions, such as Sophie's Choice and Silence of the Lambs . I think my favourite remains Bram Stoker's Dracula , with the great immortal line "I have crossed oceans of time to find you...".

THE SWIFT REPORT 2023

I am writing this post without much enthusiasm, but with a sense of duty. This blog will be 20 years old soon, and though I rarely post here anymore, I owe it some attention. Of course in 2023, "Swift" now means one thing only, Taylor Swift, the billionaire musician. Gone are the days when I was asked if I was related to Jonathan Swift. The pre-eminent cultural Swift is now alive and TIME PERSON OF THE YEAR. There is no point in belabouring the obvious with delay: 2023 was a low-point in the low annals of human history - war, invasion, murder, in too many nations. Hate, division, the collapse of what truth is, exacerbated by advances in AI that may or may not prove apocalyptic, while global warming still seems to threaten the near-future safety of humanity. It's been deeply depressing. The world lost some wonderful poets, actors, musicians, and writers this year, as it often does. Two people I knew and admired greatly, Ian Ferrier and Kevin Higgins, poets and organise

E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG - FREEDOM MEANS BEING UNAFRAID TO WRITE WHAT YOU THINK

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