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

No one seems to know who will or should fill the inestimably vast boots of Edwin Morgan , who was the greatest living Scottish poet, when he died.  His position as Makar is now open , but as it was custom-made for him, no one else is quite right (yet) for it, and new tailorings need to be applied, it seems.  Enter the usual roll call of prize-winning names, as per The Guardian piece.  Not mentioned in the Guardian piece were Roddy Lumsden, Richard Price, John Glenday , Jen Hadfield , WN Herbert , AB Jackson , or Robert Crawford - but adding them to the list that was given, of Don Paterson, Kathleen Jamie, Douglas Dunn, Liz Lochhead, Robin Robertson, Jackie Kay , and John Burnside - shows the richness of the potential short-list.  I suspect either Dunn, Paterson or Robertson will get this, ultimately - but Herbert follows most closely in the steps of Morgan as inventive explorer.

Taxpayers of Britain cannot complain - their money is not being wasted by the new laureate. Carol Ann Duffy has been reading poems on the BBC, and editing sections of "leading" poets for newspapers, of late, often with a war theme. I've been there, done that. Good to see someone else - belatedly - pick up the baton and run with the anti-war and poetry theme - Tim Kendall alert! Was it just me, or was Muldoon 's poem particularly cryptic, even for him? The problem with writing poems about Panther's Claw, or any other part of the Af-Pak campaign, is that it isn't out of the fog of war yet - and such ambiguity, while good for at least seven types of poetry - may not be the best for anti-war verse. Owen , of course, knew what he was against. Douglas - that sublime sociopath - knew what he saw, and liked and loathed it. But they saw war. In the case of Iraq, the initial attack was illegal - that was the point of contention. However, the current Helmand struggles...

The new poet laureate has met The Queen and announced a new UK poetry prize . It is named for Ted Hughes , is worth £5000, and will run for the next decade, using the annual fees she receives as its award money. My first reactions are mixed, though obviously money to support new work in poetry is a good thing. I suppose I wonder why the prize was not named for a woman poet - there is already the T.S. Eliot Prize. However, that's not a major concern. What is worth thinking about is that the prize money situation somehow supposes that the fee for the laureate was a frippery meant for better use. It will be morally hard for a future laureate to dispense with this prize, if it does well, but the laureate may not always be self-sustaining or wealthy. The money, though symbolic, actually does allow the poet to pay for things they may want to do - like travel to various events. Andrew Motion , for instance, was all over the UK promoting events big and small. Poetry tastes and opinions ar...

Sir John Betjeman - it has a ring to it, and signalled an important establishment respect, even admiration. Now, the UK has Sir Andrew Motion , after the Queen has bestowed new honours, announced today. As the acceptable face of British mainstream poetry, Motion has excelled. His poetry extends and strengthens the line of new- Georgianism that Larkin returned to post-war. Sir Motion will hopefully continue to do good work on behalf of poetry, for years to come. Meanwhile, though, Eyewear feels that a gulf is opening, between the reality that is how poetry is read and written, and the false hopes and claims often made on its behalf by apologists everywhere. I feel that poetry is actually in danger, from all sides - from both those who would make it entirely experiment-driven and Adornoesque in its austere claims and hermetic techniques - and those who think it can be a laugh-a-minute vaudeville act - comedy with rhyme basically. Poetry needs rigour, intelligence, a sense of ...

Good news. The first woman (and Scot) to be named as the British poet laureate is Carol Ann Duffy . As one of the leading and most popular of UK poets, whose reach is both wide and deep, hers should prove an excellent decade - and her first act, of giving away the annual fee, isn't bad either (though it might have been useful for travelling around to events, and it isn't clear that Britain really does need yet another annual poetry competition....). I worked with Duffy when she donate poems to the Oxfam Life Lines poetry CD project, and she was extremely generous with her time.

Andrew Motion has been a poet laureate that Eyewear could deal with - in the way that Pound had commerce with Whitman . Motion has been good - more or less - for poetry in Britain, 1999-2009. His most important work may have been his poetry about bullying, and the Iraq War (related themes), but for most people, the Poetry Archive will seem the lasting monument. I personally regret never having been asked to record for that Archive, but then again, nothing about the poetry establishment in the UK will ever surprise me - I have lived here for over 6 years, and am still treated like an arriviste every day. Anyway, back to Motion, whose support of my work with Oxfam and those poetry CDs was instrumental. His agreement to read at the first-ever Oxfam event way back in 2004 (five years ago now) meant that Wendy Cope also came onboard , as well as Agbabi and Dark . After that event, all the other great and talented poets were more willing to appear. I think Motion is a very fine, ser...

In what must surely be one of his last radiophonic interventions, before retiring soon, the greatest Poet Laureate of the last fifty years (and beyond), Andrew Motion , has been at it again, today on the BBC, arguing for a need to study The Bible , for its "great stories" - in order to appreciate "Western Literature". This is Descartes before the horse, surely. Western Literature once was designed to help appreciate The Bible. More to the point, as someone who believes that some of The Bible is "true", I must wonder at how much can be gained from merely cherry-picking the exciting bits (and there are a lot). Turning to a major Holy document to find adventure tales is like recommending Playboy for the articles on Existentialism - they're there, but not really the crux. I think Motion, a self-described atheist, is sensing a truth, though - people coming to university to study "literature" are now, often, culturally illiterate. Reading, itself...

Wendy Cope has been quoted by the BBC as suggesting the position of poet laureate be binned (or banned). What a pity. Cope - one of the truly beloved poets in the UK of the last 40 years (in the company of Larkin , Hegley and Hughes in terms of public esteem) - often uses her public profile in ways that endorse a conservative view of the world - witness her public opposition to copyleft poetry online. I admire her a great deal, and consider her a friend, but often find myself disagreeing with her opinions, if rarely disagreeing with her poems. Ironically, she seems to undermine her own position - that poets should write poems, not become statement-machines - by actually being that rare thing - a poet the press and people want to hear from, on any number of topics, not all of them poetic. Anyway, her latest jibe at the poet laureate position is, I think, sad, because she would have made a great one. She's wrong, in my book, to think the "role" of the poet is merely...

Sad news. The great British poet Adrian Mitchell has died - the "shadow poet laureate". Mitchell was a commited anti-war activist, a brilliant poet and performer, and an exceptionally warm and generous man. He donated his work to both my 100 Poets Against The War anthology, and also Oxfam CD project. I was very sad to learn of his death when I turned on BBC radio this morning. I had thought to stop blogging until January - as per my last post - but the death of such a poet demanded I return. He wrote a final poem a few days back - not knowing its mischievous title would be so oddly apt - and it is delightful - ending so movingly, so playfully. The British poetry world is poorer now that its leading moral compass is gone - though his work remains, to inspire.

The Guardian has a slogan online: "comment is free". Too true. I've noticed, lately, that sometimes articles appear (in print) in The Guardian , and other papers, a few days after the same ideas, even phrases, and images, have circulated, freely, in (on?) the blogosphere - including, a few times, at Eyewear . Most recently, today, columnist Mark Lawson has a piece on the poet laureate, referencing John Sergeant , Obama (not normally two subjects linked, I'd have thought) and other comments that strongly echo my post of a few days back on the same subject. Coincidence? Surely. However, bloggers are doing a lot of the unpaid gruntwork these days, it seems to me, for the "professional" media commentariat, and, since we all know (from plagiarism cases on campus) that "Googling" can get results, fast, it is surely time that some credit is due, when whole arguments or themes are lifted, verbatim, from popular blogs.

Odd news. The next British Poet Laureate will be selected in a bizarre mix of academic and public polling (which may yield cross-purpose results). This may not be the great Obama moment that seems intended - democracy and poetry don't always mix well, since the vast majority of people don't understand the value or purpose of poetry extends beyond voicing 19th century sentiment in rhyming couplets. Nor is new poetry merely rap, though Eyewear likes Lil Wayne . Should the winner be a dynamic, talented, personable and decent poet, like Simon Armitage , or a brilliant, important contemporary figure like Carol Ann Duffy , all will be well. Maybe Prynne could win. However, the selection process might just as easily yield a John Sergeant type, a favourite plucked from mediocrity to challenge artsy-fartsy (perceived) notions (though past laureates were often bland anyway). I feel the Ivory Tower is about to be shaken. What next, choose the Archbishop of Canterbury by phone-in?

Andrew Motion has done more than any other Poet Laureate to promote poetry. So, it comes as something of a sad shock to see him so openly complain about the thankless task of the role, and to hear him describe his challenges overcoming writer's block. Certainly, the role made him world famous - and he is still young enough to, when his term comes to an end soon, move on to bigger things. However, this intervention will, no doubt, raise new calls for the abolition of the role, at a time when either Simon Armitage , or Carol Ann Duffy , are poised to take it on. Of course, as Eyewear has noted, British poetry is in a curious state at the moment, as funding and other demands impinge on it. Roughly-speaking, British poetry is going more towards performance, the digital, and the mainstream, but not really connecting with a wider audience, anyway (see next post about the Booker) - since even serious literary fiction is now struggling to connect. The problem with poetry, is that, despit...

Eyewear is just a little surprised to learn that the new American poet laureate (a one-year term) is the comparitively little-known Kay Ryan . Inspiringly, perhaps, Ryan has risen to prominence only quite recently (her first book was self-published). Looking forward to reading her New and Selected when it's out. Congratulations are in order.

For those aware of the "divide" in British poetry, between a mainstream and a less main one, nothing is as likely to provoke gnashing of teeth than the Poet Laureate position - and those opposed to the Monarchy and British-Empire trappings might also be known to wail, too. One of the less-attractive elements of the world today, is that the media feeds us little literary stories we don't need, all-too-often, as if to remind us that we still love poetry (though "we" don't: there is no mass consumer interest in serious poetry anymore by contemporary figures). The latest travesty in this department issued from The Observer yesterday (which, in the 60s really engaged seriously with poetry), who weighed in on the imminent retirement, after a good decade, of Andrew Motion as Blair 's laureate. One wants to sigh, the "nice decade is over". Of course, Blair torpedoed Carol Ann-Duffy's boat last time, we are told in this creepy article, because of...

Simon Turner reviews Cecil Day-Lewis: A Life by Peter Stanford There are too few reviewers out there willing to admit to their own shortcomings, the gaps in their literary knowledge. I want to buck that particular trend by admitting to an almost total ignorance of Cecil Day-Lewis – both of his life and of his work – before embarking upon Peter Stanford’s new biography of the poet. I was aware that he had been Poet Laureate, though I could not have confidently placed him within a chronology, but beyond that, I knew little aside from the fact of his siring a certain celebrated actor and part-time cobbler. Why should Day-Lewis have fallen so comprehensively off the literary radar, when the other poets of the ‘MacSpaunday’ gestalt – Auden, MacNeice, Spender – remain fixtures in the 20th century literary firmament? Ian Hamilton , in Against Oblivion , suggests that Day-Lewis’ day in the sun was chiefly a matter of moving among the right literary circles, and whilst this is true to a cert...