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

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...

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...

Many who have watched the Greatest World Cup Ever can agree the last-minute battles of underdog teams has yet to be matched by the bold, selfless, and noble derring-do of the USA side in their tragic match against Belgium - tragic, in the sense that Homer 's work is, because so often the greatest are the flawed few, who fall before their time.  Especially deserving of praise is Tim Howard , already from this game a national icon in America back home, a goal keeper whose excellence, unnerved and ever-willing to leap and save, epitomises everything worth emulating about the beautiful game.  Beyond those who dive and cheat and bite, there stands the keeper with the stirring record of saves, Tim Howard, previously unsung, unheralded, now seen for what he is on the world stage.  In order to keep the fires of his memory lit, Eyewear welcomes poems inspired by this hero.  The first is by British poet Wynn Wheldon . ALBERT CAMUS CONSOLES TIM HOWARD C’est la vie, T...

I am tired of reading books about poetry that talk about how it changes lives, raises the hair on the back of the neck, cures cancer, and basically gives us healthier, more glowing skin.  If poetry had one tenth of the impact on the common reader that it is claimed to, poetry would outsell pornography, video games, and alcohol.  But it doesn't.  Chess books and books on pottery sell better.  Poems on the underground, and in the classroom, have not led to a massive eruption of poetically-improved humans.  Indeed, the efficacy of poetry has long been a myth.  Poems, except to poets, are a rather dull affair.  They sit there on the page like a lump of cold meat.  Poets love poems, because poets understand the vivacity of the processes that lead to a poem's making.  But a poem on a page does not immediately jump up like a clever frog and dance with a top hat and cane.  Poems are often remote, and indifferent, objects.  Their technologic...

Jessica Mayhew reviews Charms against Lightning by James Arthur   James Arthur is quoted on the cover of this collection as saying, ‘I love writing about places, but only places where I don’t belong,’ and this sense of dislocation permeates the entire collection. ‘Charms Against Lightning’ rhythmically catalogues fears: Against lupus and lawsuits, lying stranded between nations, against secrets and frostbite, the burring of trains that never arrive   (‘Charms Against Lightning’) The delayed syntax lurches towards fears that never come true, until the lightning finally cracks: ...the shutters swing, and clack their yellow teeth; the deep sky welters and the windows quiver (‘Charms Against Lightning’) Here, the root of the unease materialises and shatters, leaning towards the Romantic Sublime. The lack of final punctuation means that it flows straight into rest of the collection, just with a slight pause like the ...