Featured Poet: Kimberly Campanello

Eyewear is glad to welcome Kimberly Campanello (pictured) this very early Friday (so early it is Thursday!). She was born in Elkhart, Indiana. Her chapbook Consent will be available from Wurm Press’ mimeorevolution in April 2011.

She was selected to read in the 2011 Poetry Ireland Introductions Series and was featured poet in the summer 2010 issue of The Stinging Fly. Her work has also appeared in nthposition, The Cream City Review, Italian Americana, and GulfStream, among other journals.

Campanello is an assistant editor of Rowboat, a new magazine dedicated to poetry in translation. She is completing a PhD in Creative Writing at Middlesex University in London. I've much enjoyed meeting her - she's smart, vibrant, and very talented.

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Comme le feu, l’amour n’établit sa clarté/que sur la faute et la beauté des bois en cendres… –Philippe Jaccottet

The orange on the horizon—a boat with curved Viking sails

in flames. No, it’s the moon rising. I still want to cry for help.

The ring-necked dove crying for help. The one with the broken

wing that we took to the rehabilitation center. The only thing

to do with a ring-necked dove is wring its neck. A non-native species,

they probably fed it to an ailing osprey. A boat with curved Viking

sails in flames. In Dublin, they built an office on the best

Viking site they had. The only thing to do with a ring-necked

dove is wring its neck. We’re just mixed-up capitalists. It’s nothing personal.

A fire—the orange on the horizon—takes seven days to reach us.

Day one we laughed and skimmed ash off the sea. Day seven

the gardener stayed behind, drawing circles of water

around the horse, letting the cars finally explode.

The orange on the horizon—the surplus value we’ll never extract.

I can’t seem to drive my feet deep enough in the sand to hold me,

to keep me from treading water. I must float or stand. The moonrise

reproducing the means of production. This shoe is heavy and seeks

non-native species—Cuban tree frogs and iguanas—for smashing.

The only thing to do with a ring-necked dove is wring its neck.

Dear Orange on the Horizon, or to Whom It May

Concern: For just five minutes give us something different.

A tall glass building, windows with no drapery, and people

and doves we can watch rehabilitate. Draw a ring of ash

around my neck, for love. I will float and stand.

poem by Kimberly Campanello; published online with permission of the poet

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....

"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...".

Poetry vs. Literature

Poetry is, of course, a part of literature. But, increasingly, over the 20th century, it has become marginalised - and, famously, has less of an audience than "before". I think that, when one considers the sort of criticism levelled against Seamus Heaney and "mainstream poetry", by poet-critics like Jeffrey Side , one ought to see the wider context for poetry in the "Anglo-Saxon" world. This phrase was used by one of the UK's leading literary cultural figures, in a private conversation recently, when they spoke eloquently about the supremacy of "Anglo-Saxon novels" and their impressive command of narrative. My heart sank as I listened, for what became clear to me, in a flash, is that nothing has changed since Victorian England (for some in the literary establishment). Britain (now allied to America) and the English language with its marvellous fiction machine, still rule the waves. I personally find this an uncomfortable position - but when ...

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

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