Back from Hydra

Eyewear has reluctantly returned from the island of Hydra, Greece this evening, after ten days of reading and writing (and swimming) to find London warmer than Athens.

Hydra - which has no cars but many cobbled alleys and donkeymen - was the setting for The Boy On A Dolphin, which starred Sophia Loren, pictured here in a still from that film.

Over the years, many writers have visited, and lived on, this most enchanted of isles, including Henry Miller, Allen Ginsberg, Leonard Cohen - and more recently David Solway, Henry Denander, Roger Green and Michael Lawrence.

Bishop And Corn

Alfred Corn, the fine American poet pictured here - reading for the Oxfam Poetry Series in July - has a review worth reading on narcissism, repudiation, editing, poetry and Elizabeth Bishop, here: http://www.cprw.com/Corn/bishop.htm.

Nthposition Steams Ahead With July Poems Galore

The July Poetry section is up at Nthposition, and includes new writing by Fiona Sampson, Kevin Higgins, Lance Newman, Ros Barber, Alex Boyd, Barbara Beck and six other poets.

See:

http://www.nthposition.com/poetry.php

Cordite's Commonwealth

Issue 24 of Cordite, a great poetry journal out of Australia, has a bunch of poets and poems clustered around the theme of "Common Wealth" - including a new poem by yours truly.

See it here first!

http://www.cordite.org.au/index_24.html

200 Years Ago Today

Eyewear wishes to remember the bicentennary of the Battle of Maida, fought July 4, 1806.

Maida Vale, where I live, is named after this event.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Maida

Poem by Tammy Armstrong

Tammy Armstrong is one of the 20 poets I selected for New American Writing, "The New Canadian Poetry" section, 2005. She's one of the younger poets in Canada most worth following.

So, as we move towards Canada Day, Eyewear is very happy to present a most apt poem of hers, below.

I recall Canadian Tire and its Monopoly-style money with great fondness.


Amaryllis Canadian Tire

Near the return and exchange desk
the sink drain blare of Cash 11, Manager to Cash 11,
bulb-split amaryllises,
petals halogen rusted, garden bulimic
stand sturdy in clay cups
while the mats at the automatic door grow streamy
with boot tracked snow, slush.

Ski coats shift sibilation
each down-plump body
maneuvering the card table
careful not to catch a leaf
above sparkle-glue bijouteries
outsized flanges and piano hinges.

Amaryllis -
dismissed amid vulcanized rubber
boxing day sale perfume -
an ostentatious widow
price shopping the discount aisle.


poem by Tammy Armstrong

Nixon In China

Eyewear attended Nixon In China last night at the ENO.

Let me say this about that: NIC rivals Kane or Godot as a signal 20th-century work that is both paradigm shift and summit of its type - so, as Kane is both best film and most innovative film, and Godot is most influential absurdist play and also central play since 1950 - so too is John Adam's NIC both the most popular postmodern opera of its period (roughly 1977 to 2001) and the pre-eminent one, inaugurating a new kind of reference to contemporaneity in art. It is also, like the work of Welles, viscerally thrilling for its exuberance of design.