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

Apparently, according to a new book, Sylvia Plath , whose morbid anniversary is tomorrow (50 years since her cold Winter London flat suicide), was mentally disturbed from the age of 8 when her father died, and "dated" hundreds of men, sleeping with as many as five or six the same week, during her pre- Hughes time at Vassar in the 1950s; she also "self-harmed" and displayed rages of envy and perfectionism.  There is sexism in the fuss about this - many male poets - including her future husband - have been, or are, sexually voracious; and many poets teeter on the edge of mania, despair, or some unsteady cocktail of ambition, drive, and foreboding loss. Plath On The Beach One is hardly likely to forge an entirely new style of poetic utterance otherwise.  Plath, the evergreen poster girl for the madness-genius thin line, continues to sell papers, and books.  She is the flip side of Marilyn Monroe - the sexy, smart suicide herself - indeed, became as iconic as he...

There is a furore in the air because the Faber 50th anniversary edition of Sylvia Plath 's classic novel The Bell Jar , about a young woman in the 1950s America of Eisenhower who suffers mental health issues (to put it mildly), features a cover designed for the Mad Men set: stylish, retro and also, quite light.  The sense is, the design betrays the content, and cheapens lit by making it chick lit instead.  Ill-lit, it should be, not bright and sassy.  The Faber people claim the design is designed to reach young readers who might not know who Plath is, or have read her poetry - which seems a little unlikely as a sales aim - a bit like marketing Orwell to people who don't know much about Nineteen Eighty-Four with a cover of some slim sexy women in latex catsuits. However, some argue, what does it matter if the book finds new readers?  I guess the book and its cover issue raises a question - is there ever a cover not apt for an author?  Would we ever see a...

Sylvia Plath is a deserved icon of 20th century poetry, so why is it so surprising that a wannabe 21st century icon, albeit of popdom, Lana del Rey , would pose as her for the October Australian Vogue ?  Well, it is a little tasteless, it seems to us at Eyewear - and oddly counterproductive for a singer-songwriter who claims to have tatooed the names of Nabokov and Whitman on her body (two men, notice, with reps as pervs - as well as genius).  How much of the del Rey mythos is false was debated - but the doom-mongering seems a courtship with death too far, once she crosses Sylvia's path.  Should we call Ms. del Rey rather Slyvia?  No honour is done to the memory of the poems, nor is a reckless homage requested or required.  This is sheer usury.  Will Lana next pose as Ezry Pound ?  For now, she is a dross-dresser. Lana, Daddy's girl?

North American poetry cannot imagine how conservative and traditional most mainstream English poets are - though perhaps this makes sense, given the fact that the English poetic tradition is both long and unusually impressive, solid grounding on which to stake commonsense claims. To try to get a sense of how stolid most poetic thinking in the UK is now, read the opinion piece in today's Guardian by UK poet Frances Leviston , a new Picador poet, whose work is affiliated with that of Don Paterson, Sean O'Brien , and others of that serious group. It is worth noting (and I think, for instance, a poet-critic like Ron Silliman wouldn't bother) that the above-mentioned are good, intelligent poets, who know a lot about verse, and craft. Some of their work is very fine, and contributes to a genuine line of English poetry, that extends from Thomas Hardy , through Ted Hughes down to the present. Since there has never really been post-modern poetry in Britain (they had pop music ins...