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

Bug                                   When I ask him to tell me about love he channels his mother and screams until the bath water is so cold my skin feels like a work of fiction. After dark I ask, ‘Why is there a camera in our bedroom?’  and he says, ‘It’s so the sleep doctors can monitor my night terrors.’ Then he smiles in such an odd way that his mouth, his runaway mouth reminds me of a horizontal line drawn by shell-shocked hand.  Bobby Parke r is a British poet.

SJ Fowler , British poet, recorded this reading of Todd Swift, at the London launch of his new book, England Is Mine , on November 9th, 2011.

In my Canadian adolescence, 60 Minutes was a TV event.  These days very few things are much-watch, at the time, but this stopwatched event was such a thing, and the best of it was the lively and often pugnacious little segments that Andy Rooney ended each episode with.  It is a sad time when Rooney is no longer with us to cock a wry eye at the world and its foibles.

Andrew Crofts has published an e-book, The Fabulous Dreams of Maggie De Beer which Eyewear recommends. Fifteen year-old Maggie arrives in London on the run from her humdrum suburban life, determined to make it big in show business. For more than thirty years she is exploited by both men and the media. She struggles against endless set-backs and disappointments, always remaining optimistic, always believing that this time her big break has come. Then, when most of us would have given up all hope, the celebrity circus rockets her to bizarre and unexpected pinnacles of fame.

Jessica Mayhew reviews A Peeled Wand by Anne Szumigalski Anne Szumigalski’s A Peeled Wand is a collection rooted in the landscape, and in human transformations mirrored by the natural world. It is divided into three parts, the first roughly concerned with childhood, the second with war and death, while the final section explores spirituality. However, the fluidity of the poems often transcends these boundaries, making the collection richer and more engaging. For Szumigalski, her poetry of the landscape is also a way of reflecting on the body. ‘The Fall’ tells the story of a distant country where children are flowers and adults, trees. The daughter of the poem is consumed by the mystery of her always fully-clothed father. Following her father’s death, she unbuttons his shirt to find: ...the chest of an old tired man, the tangles of coarse grey hair intricate as twigs, the nipples hard and resinous as winter buds. (‘The Fall’) Despite the ordinariness of what ...

I   am faxing you the rain Blues on the corner of my heart I am faxing you the rain It is raining gray A foretaste Of midnight I am faxing you my tears Perfumed with ginger I am faxing you my weeping Scented With quarters of an hour Answer me Angéline Neveu , from the anthology Éclat redoublé; translated by Robert Smith Original French version: Je te faxe la pluie Blues au coin de mon cœur Je te faxe la pluie Il pleut gris Un avant-goût De minuit Je te faxe mes larmes Au parfum de gingembre Je te faxe mes pleurs Aux senteurs De quarts d’heure Réponds

Quebec writer Robert Smith contributed this obituary notice: Angéline Neveu (1946-2011), a poet and performer, had been active since the sixties in France. She had been one of the eleven ''Enragés'' students at the Université de Nanterre, who had instigated the May 1968 revolution in France, which had culminated in a general strike. She was involved in the Situationniste movement. This was followed by a period during which texts, music and images were entwined through the creation of books, the delivery of public readings and performances, including in the Polyphonix festivals in Europe, in New York City in 1979 and in Quebec City in 1990, as well as numerous reading performances at the Centre Georges-Pompidou, at the Musée national d’art moderne in Paris and performance events organized by Jean Dupuy in New York City in the loft of Georges Maciunas, the founder of Fluxus. From 1979 to 1984, she created and managed the “Unfinitude” colle...