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

OUR FOUNDER IS A VERY LIKEABLE AND SMART GUY WHO IS VERY RICH Eyewear Publishing Ltd is excited TO ANNOUNCE that we  love literary genius and  money-making potential, in authors. Not just in that order. Not just eyeglass-wearing panty-waist liberal progressive poet types from Chicago either. WE DO BIG BOOKS FOR PEOPLE THAT LIKE SUCCESS. BOTTOM LINE. We are ethical, ALSO. We do good in books, we are GOOD BOOK DOERS. PLUS, we plan to MAKE BOOKS GREAT AGAIN IN 2016! EVEN ON THE ROAD WE ARE CAPABLE OF MAKING DEALS THAT MAKE MONEY, FAST!     We plan to roll out a money-making literary work of genius weekly this year and next, in MODEL T FORD fashion, and will sell millions of books, because we have read THE ART OF THE DEAL . We are not bespectacled dummies. We are bespectacled smart people. BOOKS ARE THE NEW GUNS. Everyone should carry one.   EYEWEAR WILL BE GREATER THAN LONDON SOON. LOOK OUT WORLD, HERE EYEWEAR COMES! E...

Good news in tough times. Eyewear Publishing is mentioned in a new review by poet and critic  Rory Waterman in the latest issue of the TLS  - it's a round-up following the Michael Marks shortlisting, discussing various pamphlets.  Here is a brief taste:   'Eyewear Publishing, founded by Todd Swift in 2012, has quickly risen to prominence for its similarly attractive poetry volumes, and has now launched the stylish pamphlet series Eyewear 2020/ (get it?), which demonstrates much of the rich multifariousness of British poetry in 2015.'   There is mention of Sam Jackson , Matt Howard and Damilola Odelola, among others.  Seek it out.                

Eyewear Publishing has just won the world's most prestigious prize for poetry criticism in the English world for its recent collection of essays by poet, scholar, editor, anthologist and UCL professor Mark Ford , titled This Dialogue of One ! The prize is from The Poetry Foundation & Poetry Magazine and is called The Pegasus Prize for Criticism . We're only a small indie press in the UK, but we were competing against presses like Harvard University Press, FSG, Graywolf and others, with far larger staff and budgets - establishing publisher Todd Swift and his dynamic team ( Cate Myddleton-Evans and Edwin Smet, with Oliver Jones ) as a David against Goliath figure in literary publishing, here and across the pond in America. Eyewear's editorial vision  has already led to a first-time novelist, Sumia Sukkar , getting a BBC Radio adaptation for her debut. Meanwhile the prize cements brilliant Mark Ford as one of the key poetry critics of our age, the equa...

Eyewear Publishing has a major patron for 2015, who will be giving us £2,400 pounds over the year in monthly payments of £200. For that he is recognised for his generosity in each 2015 title, which he also receives free. We seek 19 more such patrons, to form the Eyewear 20/200 team. For some of you this will appear like a small fortune, but for many of you with professional careers, this could be a way of becoming actively part of a major new poetry and literary bridge betwe en America and the UK (and beyond). Please do share this with those you think might be interested. Our first brave and brilliant patron is Jonathan Wonham - and we are very grateful to his support. We aim to publish 15 books this year, of poetry, prose, and criticism, from emerging and well-known writers, from Australia, Holland, Mexico, Greece, the US, and many other places. No other UK small press is any more international than we are, and few can claim to now be publishing better or more intriguing poets...

Dear TLS - I was glad to see a review in your latest issue (January 24) by Mona Tabbara , of The Boy From Aleppo Who Painted The War , in your In Brief section. I am the editor and publisher of Sumia Sukkar's debut novel, which is why I was particularly struck by this review. Sukkar's novel is about the Syrian civil war between 2012 and early 2013 - each chapter marks an increasingly terrible moment of escalation, from the cutting of electricity to a final gas attack outside of Damascus.  The book, filled with intertextual allusion, features many characters, but the narrator is Adam, a young man on the Autistic Spectrum. Despite the fact that Ms Sukkar is the youngest-ever British Muslim woman to publish a novel - and despite the fact this is a political novel with much to say about terrorism, violence, faith, and art - and also develops a portrait of a very loving Muslim family coping with mental health issues and also wider social struggle - anyway, despite all of th...

Eyewear Publishing Ltd. is an independent press, publishing poetry and prose since 2012.  As we all know, small press publishing isn't particularly financially stable, and we were very fortunate in that Eyewear’s successful business model included a philanthropic grant. Sadly, at the beginning of 2014 this has been unexpectedly and very suddenly withdrawn halfway through the funding period, due to a change in the funder’s circumstances. While this is very disappointing, we are absolutely committed to our poets and to continuing to publish new books in 2014 and beyond. We’re making every effort to maintain our work and long term success through a variety of strategies.  If you'd like to get involved or to support our work, you can get in touch with me here .

Patron: Andrew Motion               Friday November 1st 2013     7.00p.m.        (doors open 6.30)                           Ruth O'Callaghan Presents                                                      Eyewear Publishing Poets               Penny Boxall               Sheila Hillier           ...

Illicit Sonnets --a poetic evening with George Elliott Clarke August 21, 2013 Doors open at 7:30 pm, event starts at 8 pm The Gladstone Hotel Ballroom 1214 Queen Street West  M6J 1J6, TORONTO CANADA $5 entrance fee or FREE with purchase of the book Acclaimed NOW journalist and essayist Susan G. Cole interviews Toronto Poet Laureate George Elliott Clarke. Director  Diana Manole stages a theatrical performance of Illicit Sonnets , Clarke's new erotic poetry with choreography and music selections by Keith Macfarlane featuring Payge Mildebrath.   Toronto Poet Laureate George Elliott Clarke is a fierce, funny, polemical and sensual poet, librettist, essayist and Canadian literature professor. His latest book of poetry Illicit Sonnets is a deeply erotic work, which confronts ageism and race relations head on. Discussing the work and Clarke's political and artistic sensibility is Susan G. Cole. Accompanying this talk will be a 30 minute ...

Wow - Paddington Bear would have loved to get his paws on this shop's books on the fabled Portobello road he so loved to visit... COME BY AND ENJOY SOME WINE, SOME POETRY, SOME POETRY BOOK BROWSING/ BUYING. 201 PORTOBELLO ROAD, NOTTING HILL, LONDON, JULY 1-7 2013.... HERE ARE THE COOL EVENTS (POP UP TEN MINUTE READINGS)... Monday  1st July Evening : 7 pm-8 pm: Eyewear party, with reading by Mark Ford Tuesday 2nd July    Day readers : 2.30 pm, Leah Fritz ; 3.30 pm, Kimberly Campanello ; 4 pm, Christopher Reid ;  4.30 pm, Astrid Alben Wednesday 3rd July Day readers : 1.30 pm, Tim Dooley ; 2.30 Tim Wells ; 3 pm, Fiona Curran ; 3 pm Andrew Motion ; 4 pm, Sandeep Parmar & James Byrne   Evening : Flipped Eye event: 6 pm: Sarah Westcott – runner up in the first Venture Award, reading from her new pamphlet Inklings for followed by Q&A/signing. 6.45pm Introducing The mo...

Pop Up Shop – July 2013 Summertime – and though for poets and independent publishers the living isn’t exactly easy, it’s time to come out onto the street and play. Specifically: THE SHOP. For the first week of July, 1st to 7th, Eyewear Publishing is joining forces with  CB Editions . We will be taking a pop-up shop in Portobello Road, London:  number 201 , a block along from the Electric Cinema. We’ll be selling books from our own presses and those of some others ( Arc ,  Five Leaves ,  Flipped Eye  among them, and not exclusively poetry), and there’ll be photographic prints by Ken Garland and other things. And balloons. The shop is essentially a shop, and is hardly the most comfortable of reading venues, but there’ll be events in the evenings and pop-up readings by various poets during the daytime. Those reading will include Laura Del Rivo, whose 1961 novel The Furnished Room was filmed as West 11, who has a story in the new Salt anthology...

THE MELITA HUME POETRY PRIZE 2013 (CLOSING 13th MAY) We discover, support and develop new talent. Our range is wide, our remit international, and our aim true. LAST CHANCE TO ENTER THE MELITA HUME POETRY PRIZE 2013! OPEN TO YOUNG POETS 35 YEARS OF AGE OR YOUNGER ... an award of £1,000 and a publishing deal with Eyewear Publishing Ltd., for the best first full collection of a young poet writing in the English language, born in 1978 or later. The aim of this prize is to support younger emerging writers during difficult economic times. This is open to any one of the requisite age, of any nationality, resident in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It is free to enter.   This year the Judge is Jon Stone, poet, editor and publisher, born in 1983. Stone is one of the best young British poets now writing. He was commended in the 2011 National Poetry Competition and won a Society of Authors Eric Gregory Award in 2012. A full length collect...

The Eyewear Spring Launch tomorrow, WEDNESDAY APRIL 24, 2013, in Bloomsbury, is proving to be one of the biggest and most exciting poetry launches of the year so far, in London... We sold out at over 170 tickets, and have now moved the venue to the largest room at Goodenough College, THE GREAT HALL, which can fit 200.  So we have a few more places, if you had wanted to come, after all... LAUNCHING ARE: CALEB KLACES, GEORGE ELLIOTT CLARKE, HANS VAN DE WAARSENBURG , AND DAVID SHOOK. GUEST READERS WENDY COPE AND TIM DOOLEY . FREE ADMISSION, FREE WINE. http:// eyewearspringparty.eventbri te.com/

Debut collections from Klaces and Shook fresh out of the box

Eyewear 's title, Our Obsidian Tongues , by David Shook , has American launches starting here:   7 May 2013 - Skylight Books, Los Angeles Presented by Phoneme Media and PEN Center USA, David Shook reads from his debut collection Our Obsidian Tongues and from his translation of Mario Bellatin' s Shiki Nagaoka: A Nose for Fiction . Mario Bellatin will read from the Spanish-language original, and the pair will screen a collaborative short film. Free drinks. 7.30 PM 11 May 2013 - Neutra VDL, Los Angeles David Shook presents his debut collection Our Obsidian Tongues at the iconic Neutra VDL , personal residence of mid-century architect Richard Neutra . Introduced by novelist Geoff Nicholson and featuring special guests TBA. Champagne. 7.30 PM

Travis Elborough, Caleb Klaces , and David Shook at the Albion Beatnik, Walton St., Oxford. April 26, 2013. Doors at 7.30 PM, readings begin at 8.00 PM. Travis Elborough, "the hipster Bill Bryson," reads from and spins records related to his critically acclaimed new book, The London Bridge in America. Oxonian Caleb Klaces reads from his Melita Hume Prize-winning debut Bottled Air , from Eyewear Publishing. David Shook reads from and plays whimsical Mexican records related to his debut collection Our Obsidian Tongues , also from Eyewear Publishing. Host Jenny Lewis, Oxford Poet and Oxford University tutor, introduces readers .