Poem by Jared Carter

Eyewear is pleased to welcome, this Friday, Jared Carter (pictured), who lives in Indianapolis. The photo is by Diane Carter.

During a long writing career that began in the early 1960s, when he was living in France, he has published three collections of verse – the first with Macmillan in New York, the second and third with the Poetry Center at Cleveland State University. All three volumes remain in print.

A fourth book of poems, entitled Cross this Bridge at a Walk, is now out from Wind Publications in Kentucky.

In the UK Carter’s work has appeared in Stand Magazine, Agenda, and Outposts Poetry Quarterly. Over the years, Carter has written in many poetic styles and forms, from the traditional to the experimental. A selection of his poems, stories, essays, and photographs may be found on his web site at Jared Carter Poetry.

http://www.jaredcarter.com/

Carter believes the future of poetry and of publishing in general lies with the world wide web. Cyberspace offers great opportunities for new and emerging poets from around the world. In the few years he has been active online, he has managed to post a number of prose poems, fables, and tales. Links to these works continue to be added to his web site.

Five variations on an entry in the diary of Virginia Woolf

There looms ahead of me the shadow
of some kind of form which the diary
might attain. I might in the course
of time learn what it is that one can make
of this loose, drifting material of life;
finding another use for it.

1
Ahead of me there looms some kind
of form or shadow. In the course
of time I might learn what it is that
one can make of this material. I might
attain this life, finding another use
for this diary, this loose drifting.

2
What is it that one might attain,
that I might make of this material?
Drifting, this loose shadow looms
ahead of me. In the course of time,
finding another diary of form,
I might learn some kind of use for it.

3
I might learn what it is that one
can make of time – finding another
use for it in the course of life.
I might attain some kind of shadow
of form. This loose material looms
ahead of me, this diary of drifting.

4
In the course of finding form,
in this drifting, what can one make
of time? Loose, I might attain shadow.
A diary for another use. I might
learn what this life is. Some kind
of material looms ahead of me.

5
Ahead of me, some form looms.
There, I might attain some kind
of drifting diary. I might learn
what of me is another time.
In the course of finding life, what
use can one make of shadow?

poem by Jared Carter

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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