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

EYEWEAR'S POET PENNY BOXALL WINS £20,000 FOR THE BIENNIAL EDWIN MORGAN POETRY AWARD FOR SHIP OF THE LINE ! WE ARE OVER THE MOON!

SHE VOTED BREXIT, NOW SHE REGRETS IT... Eyewear, the blog , loves to recommend new songs for you, our loyal and scattered readers, residing in various places across this wondrous globe. Erm, anyway, it has been a shit few weeks (again) in terms of the Year 2016 - a crap rubbish low year, which is killing more beloved celebrity musicians, film-makers, writers, boxers, actors, etc, than ever before. Someone should call time on 2016 - can we vote again for 2015? Anyway, the musical year is top notch - I cannot recall when more major artists brought out new material in such proximity - and it keeps coming ( Radiohead , Tegan and Sara , The Red Hot Chili Peppers , Drake , Rihanna , etc). Perversely, as always, these are not on the list below, which is actually simply songs that currently form what we in our office would call Earworm Brexitania . These are songs we turn to, in this awful dire chaos of the sun, and listen to a lot, because they are cool, and we like them. T...

Eyewear has always been a proudly British company, since its founding in the Olympic year of 2012.  But from the start, it had the backing and support of a small group of Dutch poets, artists and eccentrics.  Every one of the Eyewear pamphlets (over 30 so far); our over 40 poetry collections; and our key prose titles, has been typeset and/or designed by one person - the Dutch poet-artist Edwin Smet . Smet's clean, stylish, modernist, and retro book cover designs have, over the past four years, rightly made Eyewear one of the most iconic and best-loved indie poetry presses of the new century. But his talents are deeper than his commitment to our small press. Smet, who is a melancholy, handsome, witty, and wry man, enjoys privacy, and long walks in the midnight streets; his art works have won him admirers at many exhibitions and galleries; and he is a good poet, worth seeking out. Now today is his birthday, and we doff our hat and raise a toast to this most talented of 21st ...

The Eyewear blog is no stranger to hyperbole - I can go over many of our past posts, as editor and chief writer, and see claims of looming disaster, downfall, or war, that never quite materialised; crisis is the loom on which a poet spins his best writing. The past week in Britain - to be dramatic, in British history - has been different.  It rendered me speechless. While there were some facebook declarations, I could not face this blog, or gain the strength to compose lines on this debacle. I have been profoundly hurt by this nasty decision. It has all been said, and at least as well by others. I think the Downfall video meme, featuring Boris Johnson , may be the best, but Jonathan Freedland, Polly Toynbee, AC Grayling , and others, have also done a good job of sketching out the horrors ahead, and the horrific causes of them. But the past week has just been plain bad for England, the UK, the world - and me personally, too. Since last Thursday I have lost my 12...

FRANKIE SAYS REMAIN No one can predict the Spanish Inquisition, famously, and no one, probably, could have predicted the intensity of the current EU referendum campaign in the UK, which culminates in a vote on 23 June; currently the Remain and Leave camps seem perilously tied, at about 44% support each, with many in the undecided middle.   The most tragic result of the astonishingly vicious, often dishonest, sometimes racist, claims made in the UK media and by some Leave campaigners, was the assassination of the 41-year-old Labour MP Jo Cox , the first woman MP to ever be killed in office in Britain, and the first of any gender for over 25 years. The apparently far-right killer seems to have targeted her for the advocacy of refugee and immigrant rights she was widely known - and admired - for.   Eyewear, THE BLOG  has long supported the EU, and more bluntly, EU integration. There was never a question of this blog endorsing the Leave campaign, but we do ...

ORLANDO Intolerance, like heat, rises. No one should have to – No, but, they do. ... Without having to reload… Almost a double entendre But who hears twice When they are dying (dead)? To be killed for love Or to be honest desire Is an outrage; is there A kind of killing permissible? Revenge itself is outrageous. It’s all a circle, or some shape, Not the shape of bodies Held together, as if by glue, Stuck by blood or sex, Or yes, the loving grimaces. Is there pity for ignorance When it results in such loss, And arises from belief? Bad beliefs, like bad music Are immediately apparent To the soul’s ear; We cannot dance to hate; Only love has a beat And a groove worthy Of proper physical attention. No one may make light Of atrocity, poetry out Of such blindness Seems obscene; but terror Is the porn of our age, Clicking its way to hits And hitting out; snuffed, Those viable, visible lives So various in their options, The multiple mout...

BE PROUD 2016 is shaping up to be one of the worst years, at least from a Western historical perspective, since 1936. The deaths of major figures ( Bowie, Ali ) aside - and sad as these are, deaths of major figures happen annually - there are several possibly disastrous events about to occur, within months. One of these is the election of the sinister Donald Trump. The second is a BREXIT for the UK from the EU, which could trigger a European, and at the least, British, recession, even depression. And also trigger a cultural collapse of arguably equal horror. Meanwhile, the terrorist-hate attack in Orlando on the weekend, in which 49 people were killed, and as many injured, some awfully, for apparently their sexual preferences, is just sad, dreadful and heart-crushing on many levels. What a year, what a month. It is possible the UK will narrowly avert self-destruction and isolation, and vote to Remain, though currently polls strongly suggest otherwise; and it is...