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

SHE VOTED BREXIT, NOW SHE REGRETS IT... Eyewear, the blog , loves to recommend new songs for you, our loyal and scattered readers, residing in various places across this wondrous globe. Erm, anyway, it has been a shit few weeks (again) in terms of the Year 2016 - a crap rubbish low year, which is killing more beloved celebrity musicians, film-makers, writers, boxers, actors, etc, than ever before. Someone should call time on 2016 - can we vote again for 2015? Anyway, the musical year is top notch - I cannot recall when more major artists brought out new material in such proximity - and it keeps coming ( Radiohead , Tegan and Sara , The Red Hot Chili Peppers , Drake , Rihanna , etc). Perversely, as always, these are not on the list below, which is actually simply songs that currently form what we in our office would call Earworm Brexitania . These are songs we turn to, in this awful dire chaos of the sun, and listen to a lot, because they are cool, and we like them. T...

Eyewear has always been a proudly British company, since its founding in the Olympic year of 2012.  But from the start, it had the backing and support of a small group of Dutch poets, artists and eccentrics.  Every one of the Eyewear pamphlets (over 30 so far); our over 40 poetry collections; and our key prose titles, has been typeset and/or designed by one person - the Dutch poet-artist Edwin Smet . Smet's clean, stylish, modernist, and retro book cover designs have, over the past four years, rightly made Eyewear one of the most iconic and best-loved indie poetry presses of the new century. But his talents are deeper than his commitment to our small press. Smet, who is a melancholy, handsome, witty, and wry man, enjoys privacy, and long walks in the midnight streets; his art works have won him admirers at many exhibitions and galleries; and he is a good poet, worth seeking out. Now today is his birthday, and we doff our hat and raise a toast to this most talented of 21st ...

The Eyewear blog is no stranger to hyperbole - I can go over many of our past posts, as editor and chief writer, and see claims of looming disaster, downfall, or war, that never quite materialised; crisis is the loom on which a poet spins his best writing. The past week in Britain - to be dramatic, in British history - has been different.  It rendered me speechless. While there were some facebook declarations, I could not face this blog, or gain the strength to compose lines on this debacle. I have been profoundly hurt by this nasty decision. It has all been said, and at least as well by others. I think the Downfall video meme, featuring Boris Johnson , may be the best, but Jonathan Freedland, Polly Toynbee, AC Grayling , and others, have also done a good job of sketching out the horrors ahead, and the horrific causes of them. But the past week has just been plain bad for England, the UK, the world - and me personally, too. Since last Thursday I have lost my 12...