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

I t has been 2 weeks and 2 days since my mother died. Such is the nature of mourning. Every day counts. Each days brings us farther from the incalculable mystery of when they were still alive, and able to communicate with us. There are few key messages to give to a parent, when there are few minutes left. I love you, or I am sorry - or maybe, I forgive you - but always, finally, I love you, and thank you. I want to write more about my mother, but she was very private. I will say, now, as Halloween nears - she was the kind of mother who would sew elaborate costumes for my brother and me. I once went as Kanga with Roo in my pocket (in fact of course my Roo was a Kanga doll). My mother was born in the Eastern Townships , Quebec, Canada, in a rural setting, though her parents were teachers. She had 3 sisters and one brother, and was the eldest sibling, which early on established her take charge approach. She spent some summers on the Gaspe peninsula, in Port Daniel, where her uncle and aun...

Despite, and because of, our debates and differences of opinion, I had great fondness and respect for Roddy Lumsden , the poetic genius, who has died. When I first moved to London, we worked on editing each other's poems for a few months; he several times read for the Oxfam series and other events I hosted, and I read with him on many occasions. One always could learn from Roddy, he knew more about everything than anyone else. I am very shocked and saddened by this sudden news, and all I have to say is here: https://store.eyewearpublishing.com/blogs/news/major-scottish-poet-roddy-lumsden-has-died You should seek out his poetry collections, and his poems online, you will discover one of the funniest, and most clever poets ever born in Scotland. His death is a sobering reminder that poets in this angry age need to remember to love and support one another, and seek less to divide, and more to join, the common enterprise of creating poems of long-lasting value to others.

It is always sad news when a fiercely experimental, committed, and talented poet dies, and so it is that I was sad to learn that Sean Bonney has died, aged 50, in Berlin. Bonney and I often crossed pens online, in the past, and he was no friend to my ideas on poetics. But, he was a poet with conviction and brilliance, and every death is the death of a world. I wish sincere condolences to all who knew him, and loved him, and hope that his poems live on, in memory and print, discussion and study, for years ahead.

With the death of the poetic genius John Ashbery , whose poems, translations, and criticism made him, to my mind, the most influential American poet since TS Eliot , 21st century poetry is moving into less certain territory. Over the past few years, we have lost most of the truly great of our era: Edwin Morgan, Gunn, Hill, Heaney and Walcott , to name just five.  There are many more, of course. This is news too sad and deep to fathom this week.  I will write more perhaps later.  I had a letter from Ashbery on my wall, and it inspired me daily.  He gave me advice for my PhD. He said kind things about a poetry book of mine. He was a force for good serious play in poetry, and his appeal great. So many people I know and admire are at a loss this week because of his death. It is no consolation at present to think of the many thousands of living poets, just right now. But impressively, and even oddly, poetry itself seems to keep flowing.

CULTURE IS NOT ALL ABOUT WHAT WHITE PEOPLE SAY OR DO Last week saw the deaths of TS Eliot and John Lennon ... now imagine that media fuss. Well, what did happen? In fact, Derek Walcott and Chuck Berry died. Now consider what actually happened... There was a lot of fuss; obituaries... AND THEN... sort of not all that much. Certainly not the wailing lamentation when Bowie died... or even Ted Hughes ... I am not saying the media and Western cultural machines are organisationally racist, but there is something wrong with the omelettes in Denmark, when arguably the greatest poet of color of the 20th century dies followed by ONLY THE GOLDARN INVENTOR OF ROCK AND ROLL - and there is no world-shaking sorrow and recognition that SOME OF THE GREATEST ART AND CULTURE is made by non-white folks. Just saying... Because Walcott and Berry, for all their human weaknesses, were universal geniuses in their fields. Their deaths were not just sad or notable - they were SEISMIC. Now ima...

PLATH IS THE MOTHER OF US ALL, IN SOME WAYS TODD SWIFT ON STRANGER, BABY BY EMILY BERRY (FABER, 2017) "ANXIETIES OF INFLUENCE, THE CONFLUENCE OF POETIC RESPONSES TO BEREAVEMENT" I hesitate to call this a review - it isn't - it's an appreciation, and a comment. I should say that I think  Stranger, Baby by Emily Berry   is one of the best books of British poetry you are likely to read in 2017; and that it seems to me to be at once better, and slightly less good, than its predecessor, Berry's feted debut, Dear Boy , whose title similarly played on various meanings. I once was Berry's "poetry tutor" - for several key years in the now-famed MAIDA VALE GROUP I ran through the POETRY SCHOOL - other members included Liz Berry , Helen Mort and Phil Brown . I recall seeing almost all the poems in Dear Boy in early stages. I have seen none from this new manuscript, though I predicted, even urged it to appear, in my several reviews/essays on Dea...

Aside from our personal losses, 2016 was the year when everyone apparently began to socially mediate the death of beloved others - famous people known universally, or to many. No other year - not even 2001 - since the new century began, has been so reviled by those living in it. Fuck you 2016 was a common refrain.  The year almost became a running joke, coming to symbolise all that was mean, unfair, cruel and random about existence - it was the most existential year in decades. certainly, the death of so many talented, brilliant and creative persons underlined the compelling fact that WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE, SOONER OR LATER, no matter what. So we better get right with ourselves, the world, and decide how best to deal with the fate we have been thrown - stoicism advised. Claims that no more well-known people died than usual this year are basically besides the point (THOUGH the BBC now reports 50% more celebrities died this year than in any other on record) - in the se...

LOUIS DUDEK WAS COHEN'S EARLY MENTOR, AND MY FRIEND There was never a time when I did not know about Leonard Cohen .  I was born in 1966, and he had been famous (in Canada) as one of our best poets even before then; by 1967, he was world-famous, arguably Canada's most-beloved figure ever on the world stage, and he kept on being so, up until his death yesterday. My mother was a huge fan, and his music and poetry (less so his prose) was always in my childhood. Since I was born in Montreal (as was he), and shared his passion for debating and writing (less so, strumming guitars), he was never far from my thought - indeed, as a teenager trying to write poetry, and wondering if such a role was feasible for a Montrealer, Cohen showed the way (along with Irving Layton , and Louis Dudek , his mentors, later both mine as well). Mostly, like most Canadian poets, my affections were of the love-hate kind. He was the absentee father, who rarely did or said anything to promote younger ...