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

PRETNTENTIOUS BUT GOOD-LOOKING EYEWEAR BLOG VIEWERS Eyewear started a long time ago (the blog) and we only started gauging page-views after a few years, but the count is over 1,700,000 even still. Oddly, that 17 is mirrored in our average monthly page-views, which are just over 17,000 most months. So, we are still a great place to have your reviews, poems, and ideas appear.  Feel free to post comments.

LETHARGY, DRINK, DRUGS... THE TOPICS OF A LOT OF GOOD MODERN POETRY - AND THEMES MILSOM EXPLORES   Rhys Milsom is a poet, writer, reviewer, creative writing tutor and workshop facilitator based in Cardiff. He has a BA in Creative Writing from the University of South Wales and an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Wales: Trinity Saint David. His fiction and poetry has been widely published, including in  Wales Arts Review ,  Litro Magazine , The Lonely Crowd  and  The Lampeter Review , amongst others. His debut poetry collection, Amnesia , is published by  Onion Custard Publishing  and has been described as ‘…a frank comment on increasingly important conversations: youth lethargy, drink, drugs and notions of masculinity’ and states ‘the voice of the poems is a raw, transparent and open one throughout.’ Rhys has spoken and read at various literary spaces, including Dylan Thoma...

SOME ANTHOLOGIES WEAR THEIR POETICS OPENLY ON THEIR JACKETS Canada has so many poets it is hard to keep track, due to an impressive arts council funding regime that, at one point saw a census reveal 12,000 living poets with books out from small and larger presses. Much like in the UK or the US, but perhaps even more notably, every small town, every large city, every province, has a laureate poet. It is therefore impossible to anthologise them all - but when in 2010 Evan Jones and I put out an anthology of Modern Canadian Poets for Carcanet, the 40 or so poets we included were all out of print or unknown in the UK, except for about three. Today, in the UK, for instance, there are about five contemporary Canadian poets in print. Back in 2010, a young Toronto-based poet, with a large press behind him, with the wonderful name Jacob McArthur Mooney , attacked (there is no other word) this anthology, as if it had been the baseball bat that had clubbed his parents to death. He ...

AMERICAN RAWK GAWD The American New Wave moment had some weird and off-genre (power po, and indie-rock) bands in it - all great in their own ways - think Devo, The Cars, The B-52s, Talking Heads, Blondie, Cheap Trick , The Ramones , and even ZZ Top - curated by an eclectic and hungry MTV that could make Huey Lewis appear avant-garde at first. Meanwhile, try and name a truly great American rock band to rival AC/DC, The Who, Led Zep, The Beatles, The Stones, T-Rex, ELO,  - The Doors? Foreigner? The Stooges? The Eagles? Fleetwood Mac? Tom Petty's lads? The Beach Boys? Guns 'N Roses? Aerosmith? Glass Tiger? Rush? (the last two Canadian) - The Band (last three). The Doors, and The Beach Boys, and Stooges, for sure, but hardly in the same league, really, as The Beatles or The Stones.  Which is where Cheap Trick come in. Improbably, these late 70s power pop oddballs (most famous for 'Dream Police' and 'The Flame' - quintessential high-school dance fixtur...

THE MOST TERRIFYING BOOK OF 2016 Rush Limbaugh - the John The Baptist for the current American Idiocy - predicts he will win the Presidency in 2016. He himself has beaten off 17 of the most powerful, well-funded, conservative, ruthless, and intelligent Republicans ever arranged against one man. He is a funny, canny, super-rich, fearless, and rude man of uncommon boldness. Here comes Donald Trump - by some measure the most narcissistic "textbook" megalomaniac to run for this modern office - but also the most populist (if not popular). Nixon did not like lots of people we presume, but he managed to get some of them to vote for him - Trump has never met a group he could not offend. His default position is satirical invective with slap in the face disregard for ceremony. A Trump presidency would be a revolt such as we last saw in America when they chucked out the King - so they do have form. Americans have a capacity for innovation, daring, surprise, and stupidity secon...

EYEWEAR'S CANDIDATE FAVOURS TAXATION OF ANYONE WHO DOES NOT READ POETRY London may think of itself as the world's most important, powerful city - though New York, Paris, Berlin, Tokyo and several cities in China or India might say otherwise - but is surely top three, in terms of significance. So its mayoral elections matter - and they are today. Some of the choices offered are colourful and absurd - there is a candidate whose platform is all about how marijuana is less harmful than alcohol, and a Polish prince who wants to fight a duel with Nigel Farage - and there are worthy candidates for parties like the Greens who won't win but maybe should - and then again the two front-runners. Eyewear, the blog  reminds you to vote today, and responsibly.  You may have to hold your nose if you go with either of the main candidates - both their parties have lately seemed to play unwelcome race cards - but one of the candidates was born poor and stands for a very diverse platf...

HE HAS FORGOTTEN WHY HE EVER LEFT THE FRANCHISE IN THE FIRST PLACE There have been few singular cultural pleasures as notable as the trilogy of Bourne films starring Matt Damon , each featuring Moby 's solemn yet oddly upbeat 'Extreme Ways' theme song ("I would stand in line for this"). Their gritty action, cinema realism, and downbeat subjects made Bond seem like a cartoon, and changed that franchise (as well as influencing the new Batman trilogy). Greengrass , the director, turned out to be an action genius, easily the best of his generation. Then we had that fourth unwelcome verstigial spin-off, with another Bournelike character, and though it had its moments, we all missed Jason. Jason is back again this summer, with his pumped-up guns and lost-boy glare. Also back is the chaos that ensues when he brings the conflict up close and personal to the shadowy espionage forces ranged against him. Aptly, he is now, in the trailer, called worse than Snowden ...