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

2010 was an excellent year for indie and pop music.  For me, the top story was that Lady Gaga became boring.  I have over 100 albums on my Spotify playlists that I listen to regularly.  However,  I was able to whittle down my final list to my favourite fifteen songs (not albums, mind) of the year.  I no longer listen to albums on a stereo, but mainly on computer or other portable listening device, and like 99% of the rest of you, I tend to download the tunes that touch me the most.  Here are 15 of mine, in no order: 'Dead American Writers' by Tired Pony - REM and Snow Patrol guys create MOR classic.  Classic gets played too much and begins to bore.  But still, great. 'She Said' by Plan B -  from the best album of the year, and perhaps the most unlikely.  A star is born. 'Ready To Start ' by Arcade Fire - the Montreal band create a decade-defining album, and this is one of the best on it, with its "businessmen drink my blood" ...

Ian Pople weighs in on Modern Canadian Poets over at The Manchester Review .

Face of the Author At last the closing of the day opens the window to a face. A self-setting, a moon; blind spirit – awareness-glass that devils the stare. Cannot bear to go on seeing eyes, hair – all that style – what style evades – a god beneath reflection? Behind the head two horns shoot off – a highway in the desert; demons. One called for ecstatic words; shelves bare as crowless fields after harvest. Winter’s sterility licking the countryside with low white yields of nothingness – that blessed root to pull – uncovering yet more of least.  Least rises.  I stare onto a page ink throws back, an alibi lying set down, a shaving bite of teeth. Buildings past the jocund face pimple me bright, I’m architectured, stone and wood, no less here than there. Can’t be good to rehearse a loss in verse; not this voice – how it wants to start and end out of a transient apercu – discursive glancing up pained, forming opinions, a U-turning moan. The man across from the poet looks so q...

Carcanet Twelve Days of Christmas Sale: Illustration by Carry Akroyd, from John Clare's The Shepherd's Calendar The Carcanet Twelve Days of Christmas Sale is still on! To celebrate the festive season Carcanet are offering a 25% discount on chosen books, including poetry, fiction, photography and essays. This is a varied selection of a dozen highlights from 2010 as well as some older favourites. We will also be giving away a free copy of Five American Poets , an anthology edited by Michael Schmidt (RRP £14.95), to anyone who spends over £30 on their order from www.carcanet.co.uk . Delivery within the UK is free as usual. Click here for more information.     Our Twelve Books of Christmas are: Likenesses by Judith Aronson Collected Poems 1956- 1987 by John Ashbery A Field of Large Desires by Anthony Astbury Selected Poems by James K. Baxter Some Do Not. . . Parade's End Volume I by Ford Madox Ford Heart's Wings and other stories b...

The Moth - one of Ireland's best new literary magazines - is launching its winter issue this Thursday in Soho, with a top-notch line-up of poets willing to fly close to the limelight for the event, including myself, Tim Wells, Annie Freud, Meryl Pugh, Julia Bird, Derek Adams, Adam O'Riordan, Moris Farhi and Clare Pollard , at Jimmy's, 23 A Frith Street, London, W1, 7.30 pm to late.  Hope to see some of you there.

December 19th, 2010 William Oxley and Todd Swift , introduced by Leah Fritz All readings start at 7.30pm and take place at 99 Torriano Avenue, London NW5 2RX - nearest tube Kentish Town - Telephone 020 7267 2751. Admission £5/£3 (according to pocket). Poets from the floor welcome.

Kevin Higgins reviews Unexpected Weather by Abi Curtis & The Corner Of Arundel Lane And Charles Street by Tony Williams I read these two debut poetry collections by Abi Curtis and Tony Williams in the immediate aftermath of a three month spell during which I was, on average, teaching eight poetry workshops or creative writing classes per week as well as organising a busy programme of literary events here in Galway, Ireland. The busyness of Autumn and early Winter has been complimented by the spectacle of Ireland teetering on the point of bankruptcy and the worst November chroniclers of miserable Irish weather can remember. It can be a dangerous thing for a poetry collection to fall into the hands of such a reviewer who might be tempted to go in search of things to attack, especially when poet and reviewer are stationed in different countries making it unlikely that he’ll bump into said poet in Tescos next Friday and have to deal with the awkwardness attack reviews tend to result...