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

Eyewear is pleased to welcome poet Tom Phillips (pictured) this good Friday. I've been following his poetry ever since I included him in the global anthology Short Fuse (Rattapallax, 2002), launched in New York City eight years ago. I then included his work in Salt's 100 Poets Against The War , in 2003. Phillips is a freelance writer based in Bristol, that thriving city for poetry. His poems have been broadcast, performed, recorded and published in various parts of the world. His first book Burning Omaha (Firewater, 2002) brought together early poems and performance pieces while his second Reversing Into The Cold War (Firewater/Poetry Monthly)  is a response to his travels through Albania and other parts of eastern Europe. Below is one of the poems from that collection, which I recommend.  Phillips is now studying for his PhD at Reading, with poet-scholar Peter Robinson .  He contributes reviews and comment to Eyewear regularly. Saranda, Albania Kilos of waterm...

This in by email from the poet and scholar Peter Riley on my recent post on Nicholas Moore : "His copyright is now owned by Cambridge University Library,  who hold a large archive of his manuscripts and typescripts. A book of  his last poems, Lacrimae Rarum is available from me (through Amazon  if people want to) at £4 plus postage -- I think the poems in that are very fine.  No one should have to pay £100 for Longings of the  Acrobats even if it is out of print; that's not a valid rare-book  price, it's the work of an Amazon Market-place Shark, of which there seem to be increasing numbers. They work on the basis of charging  enormous amounts for anything which they think is unavailable. There's a poem sequence by him in the  latest issue (no.3) of The Cambridge Literary Review -- evidence that  there is still some interest."

Note: Niall McDevitt was asked to supply a note regarding his extraordinary collection, so readers of Eyewear could more fully engage with his wide and deep sense of tradition.  This is what he wrote.  McDevitt, it seems to me, combines elements of the eccentric styles and learning of Pound , with the vitriol of Wyndham Lewis .  TS A NOTE FOR TODD SWIFT on b/w What I'm trying to do with b / w is stand on the shoulders of such giants as J eremy Reed, John 'Crow' Constable, Aidan Andrew Dun, Iain Sinclair et al in exploring poetry as urban shamanism. The work is bohemian and is aware of the incarnations and reincarnations of bohemia: the Dionysians, Orphists/Pythagoreans, the Sufis/Haiku masters/Troubadours, the Amaurians/Free Spirits/Ranters etc. etc. etc. I treat poetry as an art, not as a competitive sport or an academic discipline. It is avant-garde/mainstream/performance poetry in one, as was Allen Ginsberg/Dylan Thomas/Sylvia Plath . The best w...

Tom Phillips reviews b/w by Niall McDevitt A book constructed from heterogeneous surfaces, Niall McDevitt’s b/w initially seems fascinating, bewildering, intoxicating and slightly rebarbative. From one page to another, it veers from haiku-esque observations to elaborate parable to pub anecdote to thumping rant. On the one hand, there’s the formality of the by-the-book sestina ‘Wittgenstein in Ireland’ and the subtle, shifting, half-rhyming triplets of ‘The Icon’; on the other, there are prose-y ‘routines’ like ‘Ode to the Dole’ (which comes complete with William S Burroughs -echoing references to Hassan-i-Sabbah , hashish and assassins), the breath-stretching long lines of ‘Babel’ or the lurid imagery of ‘The Drum’. Somewhere between are poems which encounter the natural world through Hughes -like metaphors (most notably ‘The Nettles’, their ‘faces like scabbards/to lunge and to slit’), a jazz-rhythmed, tenuously rhyming sonnet (‘Parolles’), excursions into New York...

A number of British luminaries has set out to welcome "Pope Ratzinger" to Britain with a letter in The Guardian , which, among other things, suggests the Church has "resisted signing many major human rights treaties and has formed its own treaties ("concordats") with many states which negatively affect the human rights of citizens of those states."  It also calls the Holy See, as a state, a "fiction".  The letter is below. If the signatories of this dishonest and petty letter had made such conspiratorial claims about the Jewish faith (that it was simply an attempt to "amplify international influence") or the Islamic faith, they would be considered intolerant bigots.  But, this is England, this is anti-Catholicism, and no such boundaries of polite discourse exist.  I find it shocking, and frightening. A few brief comments.  In England, the rights of Catholics until recently were severely curtailed, and at the time of John Donne , a ...

As a Catholic based in Britain, I have mixed feelings about the Pope's official state visit this week.  Of course, he is the head of my Church, and I want him to be welcomed properly, as befits his role.  However, I cannot ignore the many (human) failings of the recent decades.  Too many issues have been badly handled.  I also am a more liberal Catholic than Pope Benedict , and therefore listen to some of his words with concern.  Nonetheless, the Catholic Faith is far more profound, and complex, than sex scandals, though terrible - and one Pope's position.  The Church has moved through two thousand years of history - the oldest surviving institution of Western civilisation - and those comedians and scientists like Fry  and Dawkins who seek to undermine it need to be sure they have something to put in its place. I think the Pope shows great courage and conviction coming to such a lion's den as Britain is for him at this time.  I fear things will...

As has been noted elsewhere on the net, there's a link between Lady Gaga and Lady Godiva - though the earlier lady sought to pass unseen though naked, covered herself with her long tresses, and was only spotted by Peeping Tom - and acted for the good of her people.  It is likely that Gaga partly based her name on that of the famous woman of nakedness, though. And now Gaga has shown up at the blank other end of that spectrum, the red carpet of the MTV awards - as far from Coventry's middle ages and over-taxation as seems imaginable - covered only in meat.  As this was yesterday's news, I don't want to dwell on what such a statement means - indeed, the semiotics of Gaga seems a tad 80s as a time-waster.  We know she is mass figure, we know she seeks attention, we know she claims to be an artist.  I am more interested in the great big what next that faces all artists of her size and wealth and fame - she is, in a sense, the new Hirst . One can only deploy so many...