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

MAJOR TORY POET Few if any Tories in the current government (now dissolved until after the hung parliament) would want to admit it, but one of their own is a published poet, the right honourable Norman Cuthbert , MP from Twillick-upon-Roundabout South, a Surrey constituency that is most famous for having hosted more episodes of BBC Radio 4's Gardeners Question Time than any other in the UK.  Cuthbert (pictured) happily agreed to let Eyewear feature one of his poems today, on the understanding that we briefly discuss his position on Europe, immigration, and poetics. Mr Cuthbert, the son of an Anglican vicar and a music hall dancer who was famous for juggling large balls, grew up with a stern, patriotic fervour and a bit of a gift for panto. Having attended Eton, where he was particularly fond of rifle practice, the burgeoning poet-politician soon found himself at Oxbridge, where he managed to get three Firsts, a Second, and a Half, in Ancient and Modern Languages; he al...

I am pleased this post-referendum Friday in London to feature a surprising new British voice in poetry, Elliot Hurst , a former student of mine. It's a voice that seems to erupt without much interest in decorum or politesse, guided by Surrealism, nihilism, punk, black comedy, the Beats - and, a what have you got, I'm against it - sort of vision - except, the fluent imagery is striking and effective.  It may be indie, but it's not fake. Elliot Hurst has a BA in Creative Writing and Film Studies from Kingston University and is currently studying for an MA in Publishing at Oxford International Centre for Publishing Studies. Favourite themes include human behaviour and relationships, consumerism, industry, deterioration and body horror. Photo to follow.   THE NORTH ZOO The great apes were petrol-bombing the historic North Zoo eating handfuls out of neighbours' wheelie bins, for the dinner-dance.  My eyes became useless, ...

Eyewear's blog is very pleased to be able to feature, this Sunday, four poems by the recent Eric Gregory winner, Chloe Stopa-Hunt . She grew up in Oxfordshire, Dorset, and Hampshire, and was educated at New College, Oxford. She was twice a Foyle Young Poet of the Year, subsequently winning the University of Oxford’s English Poem on a Sacred Subject Prize and the University of Cambridge’s Winchester Reading Prize. In 2014, Stopa-Hunt won an Eric Gregory Award. Her poems have appeared in a range of journals, including POEM , Oxford Poetry, Envoi , Magma , and Ambit , and I she has also contributed reviews or review-essays to Asymptote , Poetry Matters, The Oxonian Review, Mslexia , and Poetry Review . Some recent poems can be read online at Ink Sweat & Tears and Visual Verse , and her poems have also appeared in several anthologies, including Lung Jazz: Young British Poets for Oxfam and Best British Poetry 2013 . Ms. Stopa-Hunt is currently doing graduate research into R...

Eyewear is very pleased to feature a poem by the Indian poet Priya Sarukkai Chabria today. At The Great Wall * 1.   Beneath a wind-blown sky white spring flowers flutter like prayer flags against the stone   wall which serpentines up and down the hills, its dark density serrations thrusting from the dragon’s   spine --which sleeps beneath the earth wallowing in   its waste: molten lament and power. It sighs     as late light’s honey licks the wall’s charcoal pores and sucks darkness up its throat.   *From the sequence of poems titled China Suite Priya Sarukkai Chabria is a poet, novelist, essayist and translator with five published books.   Awarded by the Indian Government for her Outstanding Contribution to Literature her works’ translated into six languages & is published or forthcoming in Adelphiana , Soundings ,   South Asian Revi...

Eyewear is thrilled to be offering a clutch of poems by an emerging poet of some note. Adam Wiedewitsch  (pictured) is a founding editor of Tongue: A Journal of Writing & Art and poetry editor at The Prague Revue . In 2009, he co-founded the international association of writers and artists, The Pirogue Collective , and co-edited the anthology  Imagine Africa  and  The Rule of Barbarism , poems by Abdellatif Laâbi. He has received fellowships from the Gorée Institute (Senegal), the Eva Tas Foundation (Holland), DAAD (Berlin), The Millay Colony (New York), The Ledig House International Writers Residency (New York) and his poetry has been published or is forthcoming from  Carapace  (South Africa),  New Contrast  (South Africa),  Salamander  (USA) and  Azul Press  (Holland). Nature Morte                 In memory o...

Ms Popa is a Romanian-American poet Eyewear , one of the most widely read poetry blogs in human history (to be ostentatious this Olympic Saturday), is continuing its ongoing mission to feature poems by really exciting new and/or established poets from anywhere and everywhere.  Today we have a real treat for you. Romanian-American poet Maya Catherine Popa (pictured above) graduated Summa Cum Laude from Barnard College, Columbia University, in 2011. She went on to pursue an MFA from NYU, where she worked with veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan under a Veterans fellowship, and an MSt from Oxford University under a Clarendon Scholarship. She is the 2014 winner of the Gregory O’Donoghue Prize and the 2013 winner of the Oxford Poetry Society Martin Starkie Prize. Her poems and criticism appear in The Kenyon Review , Poetry London , Oxford Poetry , FIELD , Carcanet Blog , Colorado Review , Southword , The Rumpus , and elsewhere.  She is currently an editorial fellow at Poets ...

It is National Poetry Day in the UK.  To celebrate, I want to offer readers a poem from the significant Canadian poet Robert Priest 's new collection, Previously Feared Darkness .  It is a collection I will be reviewing here before long.  For now, enjoy. Robert Priest, Previously Feared Poet V When Churchill flashed his famous V sign It wasn’t for victory As everyone says It was for vagina For he knew What I know That there is still not enough praise For the vagina He knew that if anything is miraculous The relation between the inside of the vagina And the outside of the penis Is Nixon knew it too Even as he resigned Even as he turned to face the music Of his own destiny He flashed that last V But my friends It was not a sign of peace It was Nixon’s way of saying That the inside of the vagina Is as numinous as it gets This secret is well known The vagina is a sign Without which not a single holy thing May be written...