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

Craig Saunders , a cherished Eyewear reviewer, has sent this post in from Canada... Recently, the shortlist came out for the National Magazine Awards, Canada’s top prize for magazine writers. While it’s not exactly a major poetry prize ($1000 for gold, $500 for silver), the NMAs often provide an interesting look at emerging Canadian poetry. This year, most of the writing categories were dominated by the country’s big-name magazines, with nominations led by The Walrus , L’actualite and Toronto Life . Poetry, however, continues to be dominated by small magazines and literary quarterlies. The poetry shortlist includes three works published in Victoria magazine Malahat Review and two each from Winnipeg, quarterly Prairie Fire and Montreal’s Vallum . While some names, such as Vallum’s nominees Lorna Crozier and Jan Zwicky , will be familiar to many Canadians, most of this year’s nominees are far from household names. Last year’s winner was Aurian Heller for “Song of the Taxidermist,” ...

Although Eyewear predicts a pandemic to break out sometime soon, perhaps in the next fortnight, I have still been going out into the crowded coughing streets of London. Last night, I found myself invited to a VIP-studded event at the “Yellow Café” at the flagship Selfridges store on Oxford Street, London, to celebrate the start of its 100 year birthday bash. On hand were the Westons (the hosts), Lily Allen , Joan Collins , Boris Johnson , and several famous models – as well as several leading younger poets, such as Emily Berry , Joe Dunthorne , and Allison McVety . The paparazzi ignored us poets, instead leaping all over Allen and Collins. Fame fame fickle fame. Anyway, what were the poets doing there? Glad you asked. I was a Contributing Editor for Conde Nast’s special magazine, Selfridge’s & Co 100: Art, Life Shopping – and edited the page of poetry. There have been over 200,000 copies of the magazine published, making these poems among the most widely distributed of the...

Sad news. U.A. Fanthorpe has died. She was one of the most beloved English poets of our time (and The Guardian poll choice for poet laureate ten years ago ) – and a Queen’s Gold medal winner. Along with Cope and Duffy , she formed a triumvirate of widely-known, popular British women poets who also wrote serious verse, if not always seriously. I was very pleased when she donated a recording of one of her poems to the Oxfam poetry CD project, Life Lines . One of the things that most impressed me about her was that – apart from her starting publishing at 50 and going from strength to strength thereafter – she was loyal to her small press publisher, Peterloo, over her career. She will be missed.

Good news. The first woman (and Scot) to be named as the British poet laureate is Carol Ann Duffy . As one of the leading and most popular of UK poets, whose reach is both wide and deep, hers should prove an excellent decade - and her first act, of giving away the annual fee, isn't bad either (though it might have been useful for travelling around to events, and it isn't clear that Britain really does need yet another annual poetry competition....). I worked with Duffy when she donate poems to the Oxfam Life Lines poetry CD project, and she was extremely generous with her time.

Eyewear is very pleased to welcome Patricia Clark (pictured) this Friday. I met her recently at Kingston University, which she was visiting, and we had a very engaging lunch together, discussing poetry, and creative writing. I hope to arrange a reading for her next time she is in the UK. Clark is Poet-in-Residence and Professor in the Department of Writing at Grand Valley State University. She is the author of three books of poetry: She Walks Into the Sea (forthcoming in 2009), My Father on a Bicycle (2005), and North of Wondering (1999). Her poetry has appeared in magazines such as The Atlantic Monthly , Slate , Poetry , and Woman . She has also co-edited an anthology of contemporary women writers called Worlds in Our Words . Her chapbook of poems, Given the Trees , is one of the initial four in a series from the American Land Publishing Project. Clark graduated from the University of Washington (in economics), going on to receive an MFA in English and creative writing from the U...

There is a good case for arguing that 2009 is shaping up to be the most catastrophic year in world history since 1939 (the start of the second world war). Despite the "Obama effect" - now in its 101st day - the world, in '09, is currently facing the most serious economic downturn since at least 1945, and, the most dangerous pandemic threat for forty years. On top of that, ongoing environmental degradation, and all the other problems that usually confront humanity, promise to make this end of the decade a particularly nail-biting one. Eyewear , for one, is cautiously pessimistic. A few days ago, I believed that the swine flu virus might stay confined to those who had been to Mexico, or had contact with those there - but today, and as we move to Level 5 , that seems less likely. Instead, health officials are now speaking of deaths - and the only question seems to be how many zeros after the one. One is reminded of Dylan Thomas who wrote that "after the first deat...

The WHO has argued that this recent swine flu can "no longer be contained". Perhaps. But is it not more a question that the current capitalist system - which is heavily reliant on aviation - did not want restrictive measures? Consider this option - had a limit or ban on flights to and from Mexico (even Mexico City) been implemented, and enforced, for a fortnight, until the full import of the virus could be determined, none of the cases currently in Europe, including Scotland, would have occurred . And, it is possible the life of the child who has sadly just died, because on the same plane with some other British-bound tourists, could have been saved. I understand that European tourists want to get home, but transporting them back in small tubes with recycled air for nine hours is a form of slow-motion homicide (potentially). As aviation is seen to be increasingly dangerous, to our health, why is it still allowed to thrive?