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

WAITING FOR THEIR CW TUTOR DR TODDO TO MAKE AN APPEARANCE Like many courses and degrees offered by one of the 115 or so British universities, Creative Writing comes in many shapes and sizes. Prospective students are often faced with bewildering choices, if even between local or regional options. This is a brief guide to the perplexed - a simple checklist. Here's how it works - for every yes score 10 points.  This will give you a score of between 0 and 100.  Clearly, you will want to attend a university that scores above 50%. 1. UNIVERSITY RANKINGS . There are several ranking systems you can locate easily online with Google, updated every year. The question here is, is the university you are considering ranked in the Top 50? If it isn't, the likelihood is, for all its potential benefits, it won't be able to offer many of the advantages of a more prestigious, better-funded campus, that can attract (often) brighter students. 2. DOES IT HAVE CW ACROSS BA, MA AND PH...

HO HO HO IT'S TIME TO ROCK AROUND THE CHRISTMAS TUBE RIDE HOME AGAIN Ho ho ho - all Eyewear book titles are now 35% OFF UNTIL DECEMBER 15 (last day we can guarantee delivery more or less on time with our skeleton crew of cheery Elves) - code is JingleBooks !!!!

SPOILER WARNING - THIS REVIEW CONTAINS INFORMATION YOUR EYES MAY NOT WANT TO SEE JUST YET.... North Americans have to wait for November 6th to see the 24th official James Bond film, SPECTRE , released - however, it has now been playing since Monday in British cinemas, so it is hardly reasonable, after hundreds of online media reviews, for Eyewear to hold back any further, especially given a) our longstanding history of engagement with the Bond franchise which we take seriously and b) since the film itself is about intelligence gathering (and leaking). The series was rebooted in 2006 with Casino Royale , after the Pierce Brosnan age, which, in retrospect seems a sunnier, more upbeat time, more like the Roger Moore films, and turned over to the ruggedly (even lopsidedly) handsome Daniel Craig , who brought a Rugby player's physique to the role (and, as the series developed, a surprising humanity). Casino Royale introduced a shadowy cabal of villains out to get Bond, a...

Ben Mazer Interviewed by Robert Archambeau [Note: This interview will appear as the Afterword in Ben Mazer's new collection of poems The Glass Piano , forthcoming from MadHat Press on November 1.] THE AMAZING MAZER, ALWAYS AN EYEWEAR FAVOURITE RA : I'd like to begin with process. Often, poets have spoken of their process as one or another kind of mixture of deliberation and intuition—whether they call the intuitive element "the muses" or (in Jack Spicer's case) a radio transmission from Mars. How does a poem begin for you, and what happens once you have the initial impulse? BM : Jack Spicer was deeply in love with the relatively unknown but deeply brilliant poet Landis Everson, who in turn, late in his life, fell deeply in love with me, so I not only know all of the Spicer literature, but have heard many intimate, off the record stories of Jack's thinking about poetry, and his methods of composition. Like many of the best poets,...

TRIGGER WARNING - AN ADULT POEM FOR HALLOWEEN... LESBIAN VAMPIRE ACADEMY It is not, one might suspect, a place for sisters To swallow a garlic tablet, or inspect a crucifix; Lipstick applied strictly without mirrors; The librarian expects Swinburne’s books Returned to the minute or penalties accrue; Turned at eighteen from mortal to undivine, They prefer their correction on the rack Wriggling as they divest them of mortal wine – The inside gag they have to label our blood – For make no mistakes, these fanged co-eds With their skirts and blouses kill for sport Like gods did once; they’re the new thing, Digitally connected to the boys they lure To suspend upside down, pleading anaemia Or malaria or worse – girls long in tooth, Their claws decreased for Instagram, their busts Instead pronounced – most from Slavonic Lands, or so they sound – they smirk, and grind Their words like chewing bones, torture Syntax because they can; whip their torsos In...

Leah Fritz reviews A WorldElsewhere by Shanta Acharya   A World Elsewhere, by Shanta Acharya, is a novel about India, in particular its conventions regarding women. Although the English it is written in is faultless, its style is as Indian as a film by Ravi Shankar – which is no mean feat. This book is an excellent read but it is necessary to remove Western spectacles and imagine oneself in the faraway country it's about as if it's your own, in order to glean its conventions as if you are a native. Attitudes toward women are strange everywhere of course, and wife-battering, for instance, is not unknown in the West – far from it! – but the particular justifications for being cruel to women are as different from one country to another as their languages. This novel is placed in Orissa, India. Acharya intersperses Indian words within English sentences and, although there is a glossary at the end of the book, I found I was able to read them in the text almos...

Adele, whose new video is here above, is only 27. Her previous albums have sold more than any other recording artist of the 21st century - and now, her new song, cheekily titled 'Hello', is as big a song as any by Cher, Bonnie Tyler , or Celine , in their heyday - it recalls the huge moments of the 80s, when Madonna , Michael Jackson, Sting and Elton John made videos that broke millions of hearts, or thrilled millions more.   This is classic pop - filmed on the outskirts of Montreal in a sepia landscape of tottering barns and falling Maple leaves - the London phone box in the woods and the African-American lover from "the town where nothing ever happened" - strangely at odds with the lyrics about calling from California - but it works.   Damn, does it work. Adele has never looked more powerful or glamorous - she is beauty personified, in voice and persona - yet she is also a villain in this song, a daring move.  Drenched in irony and regret, I dare you to...