Poem by Hal Sirowitz

Eyewear is thrilled and happy (not always a combination you'd expect) to welcome Hal Sirowitz as the Friday poet. Sirowitz (pictured) is the former Poet Laureate of Queens, New York. His latest book, Father Said, was recently translated into Icelandic. He's the most popular translated poet in Norway. He is also one of the greatest of the first wave of American slam poets, whose work arose during the heyday of the Nuyorican readings. His Mother Said poetry collection is a best-selling classic, merging humour and poetry in a new key. Time Magazine has called him "a bit of a cult hero". He's one of the truly unique voices in contemporary American writing today. I've included him in as many of my anthologies as I could, from Poetry Nation, to Short Fuse, to Babylon Burning. Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome, Hal Sirowitz...

Pride Not Deserved

You can't have
a sex life unless
you have sex,
father said. You
can't have a post-sex
life either. All you can
have is a pre-sex life. But
that's nothing to be
proud of. Every one has that.

poem by Hal Sirowitz

Comments

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?

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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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