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

 A TRUMP SUPPORTER AT THE BALL I will spare you, in this brief editorial post, too much gnashing of teeth, and too many dire predictions. I will even offer the briefest of summaries: Trump is a very bad thing indeed - let's get on with democratically opposing him, in the USA and globally, within legal limits, as strongly and intelligently as possible.  Satire and comedy, tweets and posts will be a part of this, but not enough - Chaplin's The Great Dictator did not save Poland. For its part, as a small publisher, my company Eyewear is open to ideas for books that further such aims of seeking to defend the world against its worst Western threat in 75 years. So, okay.  That's what I wanted to say. But, to be gloomy, for a moment, yesterday was truly a low, in my lifetime, and historically, for America, and its struggling democracy. A low for the world. Yesterday's neo-fascist inauguration speech, then the dance to 'My Way', and the immediate gutting of Obam...

TOM FORD FANS On a lighter note - Lord we need one - 2016 was a great year for cinema, popular, commercial, foreign and domestic, art-house and comic-book.  As I was reminded recently, the last time a film took all top 5 Oscars (Best film, director, producer, actor and actress) was 1991 for horror classic  Silence of the Lambs (one would have thought Titanic , but Winslett did not win that year). 26 years later, this could happen again with La La Land - or not, so stiff is the competition.  If they use all ten places, here are the ten films Eyewear thinks the Academy will nominate for Best Picture, based on other prizes, and critical reception. 1. La La Land - the sentimental favourite, and one to beat, for its self-reflexive rescue of the musical; 2. Moonlight - a powerful contender, examining a young boy's life as a black gay person in Miami; 3. Manchester by the Sea - probably shoe in for Affleck as best actor; 4. Jackie - again, Portman would win for...

Jackself by Jacob Polley REVIEWED BY ROSANNA HILDYARD Jackself is a scarecrow made up of lean meat and fat, frost, daws, lanterns, digestive biscuits, roundabouts and cow parsley. Jackself is Polley’s alter ego in this series of narrative poems, which work equally well individually as they do patchworked into a collection. Jackself is a wild pagan figure, a wodwo from ancient England, Jackself follows a snotty teenager growing up around the crumbling farms of Lamanby, in Cumbria. Although Jackself is a hodgepodge of tones and references, it forms a remarkably coherent collection when read end to end. It is structured as a poetic bildungsroman , charting Jackself’s loss of innocence as he comes to terms with grief. Jackself is the love story of two friends: Jackself of Lamanby and Jeremy Wren, who bully and wrangle with each other, go fishing in Lamanby’s deserted tarns, and stay out at night to drink white cider and Malibu together ‘way out among the hedgerows’. ...

I once had the pleasure of having a poem I had written directed, and recorded by, the brilliant director-actor Fiona Shaw . Or rather, it was a treat but also a shocker. For Ms Shaw spent an hour trying to wrest a performance from my reading of my own work to get to the heart of the matter - a kernel of truth she sensed I could not quite hit with my voice, my vocal performance. Finally, in something akin to desperation, she admitted that actors, for her, were far better readers of poems than the poets themselves.  In fact, she confided, if actors did poetry readings more often, people might actually enjoy poetry. Such a viewpoint is partly behind today's event in British radio broadcasting - a New Year's Day special seeing Jeremy Irons (that immortal ham, best-beloved for Brideshead Revisited and Die Hard 4 or whatever ) - reading ALL OF TS ELIOT'S POETRY (!) over the course of the day, on BBC Radio 4 - directed by, you guessed it, Fiona Shaw. Meanwhile, it must be sai...

Aside from our personal losses, 2016 was the year when everyone apparently began to socially mediate the death of beloved others - famous people known universally, or to many. No other year - not even 2001 - since the new century began, has been so reviled by those living in it. Fuck you 2016 was a common refrain.  The year almost became a running joke, coming to symbolise all that was mean, unfair, cruel and random about existence - it was the most existential year in decades. certainly, the death of so many talented, brilliant and creative persons underlined the compelling fact that WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE, SOONER OR LATER, no matter what. So we better get right with ourselves, the world, and decide how best to deal with the fate we have been thrown - stoicism advised. Claims that no more well-known people died than usual this year are basically besides the point (THOUGH the BBC now reports 50% more celebrities died this year than in any other on record) - in the se...

The Beverly Prize announces its winner for 2016 next week! This prize (named after an Irish-Canadian writer and book-lover) may be unique in the publishing world (you tell me) in that it is likely the most inclusive and open: Any nationality can enter; any age 18 or older; and you can enter (so long as it is mostly unpublished and original) ANY FORM OR GENRE of writing for consideration - from non-fiction to a novella, a short story collection, a novel, a play, a screenplay, a memoir, a biography, or a pamphlet or full collection of poetry. The only caveat, is it must be written in English. This year, we received a good number of entries - and after a good deal of hemming and hawing, re-reading and debating, the three editorial team judges ( Oliver Jones , Rosanna Hildyard , and Todd Swift) were able to cleave to a decision not to have a shortlist verging on the rather long, but still keep a wonderful range of voices, emphatically new and old, more and less establis...