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

Eyewear is pleased to feature one of the true pioneers of online poetry this Friday, and one of the English-speaking world's most active, engaged and compelling contemporary poetic talents. John Tranter (pictured) is the founding editor and publisher of the online literary magazine Jacket , at http://www.jacket.zip.com.au/ and is the leading Australian poet of his generation. For more than thirty years he has been at the forefront of the new poetry, questioning and extending its procedures. He was born in Cooma, New South Wales, in 1943. He attended country schools, and took his BA in 1970 after attending university sporadically. He has worked mainly in publishing, teaching and radio production. He has lived in London (1966-67) and Singapore (1971-72), and now lives in Sydney. He has published many volumes of poetry, including Urban Myths: 210 poems: New and Selected . A selection of his poems appears in the Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry (New York, second edition, 1988). Hi...

Wendy Cope has been quoted by the BBC as suggesting the position of poet laureate be binned (or banned). What a pity. Cope - one of the truly beloved poets in the UK of the last 40 years (in the company of Larkin , Hegley and Hughes in terms of public esteem) - often uses her public profile in ways that endorse a conservative view of the world - witness her public opposition to copyleft poetry online. I admire her a great deal, and consider her a friend, but often find myself disagreeing with her opinions, if rarely disagreeing with her poems. Ironically, she seems to undermine her own position - that poets should write poems, not become statement-machines - by actually being that rare thing - a poet the press and people want to hear from, on any number of topics, not all of them poetic. Anyway, her latest jibe at the poet laureate position is, I think, sad, because she would have made a great one. She's wrong, in my book, to think the "role" of the poet is merely...

Jack Swift was a Montreal lawyer and art collector, who died over Christmas, in the Eastern Townships, at the age of 72. He was also my father's brother, and my closest family friend. He was more than an uncle, but also my mentor, introducing me to many of the key interests of my life so far: Ireland, literature, theatre, music, film, and the genius of queer culture. Below is the eulogy I wrote for his funeral, edited a little, as some of the comments are too personal for a blog. ... Those who knew Jack Swift will know that, in his dying, the world has lost an extraordinary figure. We are so often informed by the media that X or Y is charismatic or larger than life that we sometimes forget to test such claims against our own experience. John A. A. Swift was truly larger than life - the sort of brilliant, compelling enthusiast, bon vivant and interlocutor who instantly dominated - no other word will do - almost any situation he found himself in. In his modes of personal and public ...

Katrina Naomi reviews Women’s Work: Modern Women Poets Writing in English edited by Eva Salzman and Amy Wack This is a whopping great book, twice the size of the last women’s poetry anthology that I read, and features 271 poets. I don’t envy the editors’ task: Eva Salzman and Amy Wack have set out to provide a modern-day canon, and I’m impressed with the variety of poetry which they’ve chosen. Eva Salzman tackles the potential ‘own goal’ of producing a gender-segregated anthology head on. Her introduction is impassioned and thought-provoking. In my pre-poetry life, I worked as a gender officer. Yet I still found my eyebrows gravitating skywards when I heard of a new women’s anthology. Isn’t this just a teensy bit out of date? But Eva Salzman’s rigorous essay shows why such an anthology is still needed. I won’t rehash all the arguments here, buy the book and read them for yourself - it’s well worth it. But even a cursory glance through any number of anthologies will show that ...

This is, perhaps ominously, the 1,221st post at Eyewear - perhaps apt for a 21st century blog reporting on the worst economic crisis of the postmodern period . Indeed, there's an argument to be made that, since Britain is now about to enter a period of economic slump not seen since the austerity years of 1945 (according to the IMF), this first decade of the new century ends, ushering in a new era - one curiously mixed in outlook: exciting because Americans seem about to renew themselves, but dire as the world grinds to a halt. Will 2010-2019 be the decade of Green fightback, as we address the climate and remake the market economy in the new image of Obama? Or is this a new Great Depression, Mark II?

Molly Peacock has blogged about the ways in which American and Canadian poets relate to their British peers. Now, blogs are always a bad place to locate someone's poetics, or deepest thoughts, but I for one was a little disappointed by this simplistic take on things. Now, I need to say, I am in the book she has series edited, Best Canadian Poems in English 2008 , and am very proud to be; I admire her work immensely, as poet, and editor. Still: I feel it's not enough to observe the cultural and aesthetic differences of American and Canadians, by commenting on the fact Canucks have the Queen on their money, or "stayed at home" with "mom and pop" while the noble Yanks broke free of the British empire. I think American poetry is a lot more complex than that (many American poets draw on British and European traditions) - and I know for sure British and Canadian poetry is far more complex. For one thing, Peacock doesn't really observe the biggest shadow of al...

Thanks to the Weekly Rader blog for alerting me to this - an exciting new blog about Obama's first 100 days . So far, so good.