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

Oh dear, another one of those days - Remembrance Day 2011 will be another, as was January 1st, 2001, when all the numbers align.  At ten past ten this morning it would have been even cooler.  What are these days called? Why are they not floating festivals, or moments for mass carnivals to erupt, where all order is inverted, and mayhem rules?  As luck would have it, I will be guest blogger over at The Best American Poetry blog this week, starting today.  So don't expect to see so much of me over here, until next Sunday. Pip pip.

The Times has run an impressive article, singling out a few (ten) younger British poets , for attention. As I recently included or mentioned several of these same poets in my Manhattan Review section, such as James Byrne , Joe Dunthorne , Luke Kennard , and Emily Berry , I can only concur, and in fact, welcome such a focus on them. However, I cannot help but feel there is something a tad disingenuous about the "Facebook poets" tag that has been applied here. Not by the poets themselves, I hasted to add. As with "The Movement" tag, this is a media label. I am the co-founder of the original "Poetry" group at Facebook, with over 6,000 members - and I can tell you, while poetry circulates via that leviathan, it does so at a snail's pace; few real poets post work online. Facebook mostly reps mediocre poetry; it is superb for advertising events, magazines, contests, etc. - and in that way only is this "generation" of under 35-year-olds shaped poe...

America is having an early springtime, to paraphrase Reagan , brought on by the extraordinary flowering of its grassroots democracy, as captured by the worldwide media over the last week or so. Despite the bias of many snobs in Europe and beyond, who sniff at American ways of doing things, and fear or loathe the American tendency for optimism, sentiment, and faith in public expression, the Obama-Clinton wave has been a corrective. It's impossible not to be impressed by the genuine force and energy of the people, everyday and humane, concerned and informed, who are the green fuse of these primaries. British papers, often known to mock America, are filled with editorials gushing with Niagra-like praise (the Canadian side of Niagara at that). One thing is clear: America has, despite all its flaws and foibles, the most active and open democratic system in the world today, and almost any American (short of a convicted criminal) is free to rise to the challenge of running for the Presid...

The Sunday Times Culture section for January 6 ran several reviews which, taken together, expose, or raise, certain questions about the way in which exceptional talent is presented, and received, in contemporary Western society. The review of award-winning American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J Robert Oppenheimer relates the bizarre spectacle of a nine-year-old genius turning to his cousin and saying "ask me a question in Latin and I'll answer you in Greek", yet later in life refusing Einstein's advice, and subjecting himself to a ruinous grilling at the hands of the McCarthyite AEC inquiry. Oppie, Sanskrit-reading, was bullied terribly as a child, because he was exceptional, and most people, by definition, cannot be; exceptions are often picked on. John Carey's review is laudatory, as he ends by saying "no more absorbing biography will, I predict, come out this year". Oppenheimer is fascinating - I had never realised he was quite so wealt...

Who has been more exciting, and promised greater transformative energy, running for the American presidency, than Mr. Obama (pictured)? Lincoln , Kennedy (both). Few others. Eyewear predicts and hopes he will take the Iowa Caucus for the Democratic Party, on 3 January. This position is not as radical as it may seem, since today The Times (UK) declared for this thrilling, radically new candidate, as well. Of course, American presidents won't budge the US towards enlightened socialism, but they can tilt it towards a more nuanced form of capitalism, at least.