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

Eyewear is very pleased to welcome Adham Smart (pictured unseasonably with snowman) this Halloween Friday (the poem does have a pumpkin in it, so some seasonal tie-in occurs). Smart is, according to his own bio note, "an Anglo-Egyptian boy in his first year of Sixthform" who lives in Southeast London. He first became known as a young poet of much promise after winning the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award in 2006. Smart has been published in a handful of places, including a poem in The Rialto , short stories for The Cadaverine and a digital chapbook on the Mimesis website, and was recently selected for the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award 2008. He also helps to run the online youth poetry magazine Pomegranate . Get Smart, as it were - he's one to watch. Pumpkin Heart Boy A lovester after his own fashion, he took her hand and held it in his. Oh, was he a wonder- kid, his hair in tufts and sweeping waves like dolphins surfacing in a line. Golden-eyed, he licked her...

70 years ago today, America's greatest 20th century media-genius, Orson Welles , boy prankster, terrified parts of New Jersey, and beyond, with The Mercury Theatre on the Air's infamous radio broadcast of War of the Worlds . Last night, a very different genius of American reinvention, and media expression, Barack Obama , presented the glossiest, and most expensive, political broadcast in American history . Much has changed in 70 years, in terms of credulity among the masses - and much remains the same. One thing does seem strikingly similar: America's dependence on the media, for information, and entertainment. The dangers in the time of Orson are the same as in the time of Obama - when the twain meet too closely (as in some slurs that repeat and multiply over the blogosphere). For the world now, Eyewear hopes Mr. Obama can win next week; but fears, as much as any Martian invasion, the menace of Alaska's own monster, so close to the lip of power.

The BBC has finally acted decisively . This is a major cultural moment for England - a turn to seriousness. For years, comedy, and comedians, have ruled the celebrity roost in the UK, often converting everything they touched to dross - even making British poetry safe for lightweight laddishness. Before the credit crunch, such a culling of major BBC talent would have been unthinkable - but it seems the times demand rigorous accounting - for economic, as well as moral, failings. Ironically, the attack was on a great comedian (and his family). Brand will bounce back, and likely in film, but Ross might be severely damaged. He's been a family-friendly brand for years, and has now crossed into the blue.

Two of Britain's highest-paid BBC bad boys are now facing unprecedented political pressure (as is the BBC) today, after Gordon Brown waded in . What makes the occasion more bizarre is that a comedian from Fawlty Towers , and his erotic-dancer granddaughter are also involved. Not just a tempest in a teapot, then, but more a cabaret in a cuppa. But mostly, bad words from the BBC at a time when funding needs to be cut, somewhere. Silly, rude, and, finally, unprofessional.

Sad news. Arguably Canada's greatest wrestler (other than Mad Dog Vachon ) has died, The Guardian reports in this moving obituary .

The GG's are still Canada's biggest literary awards. Announced on October 21, these are the poetry finalists for this year: Weyman Chan 's Noise from the Laundry ; A.F. Moritz 's The Sentinel ; Sachiko Murakami's The Invisibility Exhibit ; Jacob Scheier 's More to Keep Us Warm and Ruth Roach Pierson 's Aide-Memoire . Eyewear ran a review of the Moritz earlier this year. It's a very good book, and likely the favourite. One comment - knowing, as I do, how rich and roiling the CanPoetry scene is currently, I am a little surprised at not seeing more of the younger poets now rising in the ranks, including Boyd , or Mooney .

Eyewear is very glad to welcome the American poet Morgan Harlow  this Friday. Harlow was raised in Madison, Wisconsin and studied English literature, journalism and film at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She completed the MFA at George Mason University in 1999. A Pushcart nominee, Harlow's poems and fiction can be found in Washington Square Review , Descant , the Tusculum Review , Nthposition , and elsewhere. Her essay on Ray Bradbury 's work has been reprinted in Contemporary Literary Criticism . Harlow has worked as an editor in the medical and social sciences and taught as an adjunct. She lives in rural Wisconsin with her husband and their sons. A Partial Lexicon: "Fresh" and Related Of all words contributed to English by Felines, perhaps the one which retains most its original flavor is the adjective "fresh," demanding a squinching of the eyes and nose for articulation in the Cattish. The word's true usage occurs ...