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

ARTIST OR FINANCIER? Recently, the Canadian government increased by 400% its funding for the arts, while arts funding in Australia and the UK continues to be slashed; this has led to a massive wave of joy and exuberant hope among the Canadian artists I know - musicians, composers, dancers, painters, poets, writers.... hope that in America we assume will not bear fruit in 2017, as Trump slashes cultural funding ever more. Justin Trudeau gets culture, and I am proud he is our PM in Canada. However, there is a different intensity of vision, which I have, and share no doubt with other practitioners of the creative arts and industries. It is this, simply this: Cultural and Creative production, activities, processes, projects are not just one other thing to do, not a hobby, a side-line, an option, but, actually - THE HIGHEST ENDEAVOUR OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. Scientific and medical research is incredibly vital; religious meditation and conjecture equally so. But only the arts can fu...

"Close Reading" is the term for a technique often used to read poems, or poetry that was instigated in the 1920s at Cambridge by several critics; and though it tends to be questioned now, most poetry book reviewers, and even most poetry critics, do, at least sometimes, read poems from a close reading perspective. And that's fine. But I wish to assay something else, also, now.  Imagine if we only discussed the weather in Britain - the storm fronts, the cloud banks, the gale force winds, the light and heavy rains, even the snow - in terms of individual snowflakes or pellets of rain.  It wouldn't do - instead, we generalise; draw expansive maps, and look at much larger forces. If one sees each poem as a drop of rain, or perhaps one weather event on one day, then by stepping back, we see a broader picture emerge.  Heaney as a warm summer breeze; Larkin as a squall.  This is not meant to be apt, just a lightness of touch.  But the idea is there - what is the di...

KINGSTON UNIVERSITY PRESENTS PENRHYN ROAD CAMPUS KINGSTON-UPON-THAMES OPEN TO ALL - ADMISSION FREE Tuesday 7th May, 2013, 5.30-7pm An Evening of EcoPoetry and Sustainability: Conversations with Ann Fisher-Wirth, Todd Swift, Brycchan Carey and Katherine Eames   Ann Fisher-Wirth , poet from the University of Mississippi, reading from her anthology of American EcoPoetry and in discussion with Todd Swift , Katherine Eames , and  Brycchan Carey about US and UK ecopoetry and the making of anthologies.  JG4006, Penrhyn Road, Kingston University. Refreshments will be served.