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

Good news. One of Canada's most-deserving poets, Arnold W. ("Wily") Orage (pictured) has won the coveted Percy Epsburgh Prize for Distinguished Achievement in the Realm of Poetry. Epsburgh was one of the leading credit derivative wheelers and dealers in the late 80s and 90s, who parlayed his way with financial instruments, and leveraged buy-outs, into a vast fortune, which he then turned into a larger vast fortune by buying lots of foreign debt and then selling that on to investors in China and Brazil. In the process, he became famous as "Sage II", or sometimes, "The Gnome of Burlington", where his offices were based. Epsburgh retired, at 55, in the late 90s, before the current credit crunch, and even before the Internet bubble burst, coasting on a wave of "monetary jubilance" as he called it. Agreeing with Wallace Stevens that "poetry is a kind of money" and with William Carlos Williams that "what you can't see is not ...

MARCH 31 – NICOLE BROSSARD & TODD SWIFT AT FOYLES BOOKSHOP Acclaimed Montreal-based poet, novelist and essayist Nicole Brossard will tour the UK and Ireland this spring. In addition to participating in the British Association for Canadian Studies’ annual conference at Oxford University, the author of Mauve Desert and The Aerial Letter will read and sign books in London. On 31 March, Foyles, the London bookstore, will hold an event entitled 'In Conversation With Nicole Brossard.' The event will be hosted by Montreal anglophone poet Todd Swift -- now living in London -- who will also read from his newest book, Seaway . Two-time Governor General's Award winner Nicole Brossard will read excerpts from her novels and poetry, including Yesterday, at the Hotel Clarendon and Notebook of Roses and Civilization . Audience members are encouraged to bring their questions for the Q&A session that will follow the readings, and to purchase books for signing. The event will be ...

Jacket 's lately been publishing articles and letters defending or questioning Heaney 's legacy and poetics. There is even a letter from poet Jamie McKendrick . I can't help but feel the whole thing is a tempest in a teapot. There is a bigger picture, and a bigger struggle, and using Heaney as strawman/ punching bag (or Holy Grail) is just not on. Jeffrey Side , who knows his stuff, has set up a rather obvious Movement vs. New Romantic/Apocalypse historical binary. Histories of modernism are more various and complex than that, as Robert Scholes has shown us. Empson defended Dylan Thomas ; Larkin adored Yeats (that sort of thing). The problem is, when poets get stuck into arguing about 50-year-old grievances, it becomes as intractable as The Middle East - with the difference that the ground has shifted. The real problem, which Heaney typifies for critics like Side, is that there does seem to be a smug, conservative establishment at work in certain parts of the British poe...

I've been reading Roddy Lumsden's fifth collection, Third Wish Wasted , which was launched on Friday. It's seriously good. Or rather, playfully good. Or both. Is there a better mainstream poet of his British generation, currently practicing now? Many might think so, I am not so sure. This new book is so full of word games, and new forms ( charismatics , for instance), and delights for the mind and ear. The poems are rich, sonorous, and always musical - though music varies, and so do these poems. Music, of course, is Lumsden's favoured realm - as is love, from sour to sweet - and how song and love merge well. This isn't a review, just a tip of the hat. Anyone reading Lumsden's work is likely to learn a few tricks of the trade. His growing oeuvre is increasingly exciting. I'd say he was a poet's poet, but his work is popular with more than just poets. Meanwhile, a whole younger generation of London-area poets has been tutored by him, and made...

Sad news. One of the greatest film composers has died. Jarre created the music for three of the most sweeping Lean epics - Lawrence of Arabia , Dr. Zhivago , and A Passage to India - as well as countless other films and TV series (such as the classic Jesus of Nazareth ) - some of rather mediocre quality at best. But his best scores (including Topaz , Witness , and The Year of Living Dangerously ) are unforgettable and always improved the films they were composed for. Most significantly, the marriage of the desert imagery and his momentous music, in Lawrence , must count as some of the most romantic cellulloid ever.

Rubicon is celebrating its 21st publication and so I asked poet, editor and small press publisher Jenna Butler to write an article for Eyewear on her experiences with the press. In the early spring of 2005, I began Rubicon Press with poet Yvonne Blomer in order to publish a collection of poetry from the MA in Creative Writing: Poetry at the University of East Anglia in England. When Yvonne and I moved back home to Canada after completing our degrees and decided to take the press along with us, I couldn’t have imagined in my wildest dreams that it would flourish in the way it has. At just four years young, Rubicon Press has just released its 21st chapbook. We decided to produce chapbooks (as they are called in the UK, pamphlets) because they’re akin to tasters of poets’ work. Chapbooks can be designed to create an immensely strong reader response in a very small space. Again, because of its short length, the chapbook format allows us to work closely with poets on both the editing and d...

It is possible you have not heard of Fever Ray - I hadn't until today, when I read a review in The Guardian . Since then I have "spotifyed" the album, and am currently entranced. As the aforementioned review mentions, this is a work of rare and complex beauty - with echoes of the more experimental textures of the 80s. I am particularly struck by the aspects that sound like Duet Emmo , or indeed, many artists from Mute. It seems to combine aurally the electronic and the environmental in a way, that, too, later Talk Talk explored. Bjork , of course, seems the most direct seam mined. At times, there are also more contemporary nods to TV On The Radio . In the process - and importantly from an eco-feminist perspective - it goes further, perhaps, especially in writing and singing about motherhood, childhood, and other "less rock" subjects - extending the politics of pop form. Fever Ray , the album, feels like a major musical event of the moment. It certainly sounds ...