A Death In The Family

Yesterday, one of my closest and most beloved family members died. I will write more, in the fullness of time, here, and elsewhere, but not yet.

Eartha Kitt Has Died

Holy Moly Batman! What a week... yet another fabled anti-war protester has died - this time, beloved camp cabaret act, Eartha Kitt, famed for her feline fling as Catwoman. Sad news. Kitt, as singer, actor, and kitsch heroine charmed millions. There is a slight irony in her dying on Christmas day (yesterday) as one of her most famous songs was Santa Baby.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7799852.stm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOMmSbxB_Sg

Pinter Is Dead

Not a great week for anti-war writers. Sad news - one of the greatest contemporary playwrights, Harold Pinter, has died.http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/1805113.stm

Adrian Mitchell Has Died

Sad news. The great British poet Adrian Mitchell has died - the "shadow poet laureate". Mitchell was a commited anti-war activist, a brilliant poet and performer, and an exceptionally warm and generous man. He donated his work to both my 100 Poets Against The War anthology, and also Oxfam CD project. I was very sad to learn of his death when I turned on BBC radio this morning. I had thought to stop blogging until January - as per my last post - but the death of such a poet demanded I return. He wrote a final poem a few days back - not knowing its mischievous title would be so oddly apt - and it is delightful - ending so movingly, so playfully. The British poetry world is poorer now that its leading moral compass is gone - though his work remains, to inspire.

And To All A Goodnight

What a year. Eyewear, for one, is glad to take some time off with family and friends, sit by the yuletide fire, and listen to some sleigh bells - or some such version available in these isles. It's been a time-wasting pleasure to continue this ephemeral blog, and thanks to you, my readers, it makes sense to keep on keeping on doing it. For now. But not anymore, in 2008. The next few weeks belong to deeper magic, the time-tested recourse to seasonal contemplation, festivity, joy, and celebration, that is Christmas. At the peak of the year, at its darkest moments, in its wintry chill - light and warmth and fellow-feeling is both right and good. Then comes a new year. And that too, brings its needful ceremonies. See you then, and there! To paraphrase Les Murray, I wish you God this holiday season. Or a reasonable facsimile thereof. Love, for a start. And health. Wealth? Bah-humbug! That's proven even more ephemeral, hasn't it?, than blogs.

Conor Cruise O'Brien Has Died

Sad news. Conor Cruise O'Brien - writer, historian, public intellectual, and politician, has died. In some ways, it seems fitting (if nonetheless unwelcome) that his death should coincide with the 400th anniversary of Milton's birth, for O'Brien loved Milton, particularly Paradise Lost.

I have a great memory of spending New Year's Day morning with him, about a decade ago, at a lovely castle in Ireland, reading from that epic poem, with him, his wife the poet, and one of his sons. It remains one of the highlights of my life, to have been welcomed in to his circle of celebration.

A decade before, I had enjoyed his essays, especially on Yeats. His controversial literary opinions included a critique of Yeats as nationalist which profoundly questioned that poet's (quasi-fascist) role as Irish public man. Ireland has lost a troubling, problematic, great figure.

Poem by Katy Evans-Bush

A special Salt Cyclone event today on Katy Evans-Bush's tour of the world wide web. Eyewear is thrilled to be a part of this vivacious poet and blogger's whirlwind virtual voyage.

Katy Evans-Bush (pictured) was born in New York City and has lived in London since she was 19. Her poetry and essays have been published on both sides of the Atlantic. She is a regular contributor to the Contemporary Poetry Review and writes one of the most important British literary blogs, the very popular and always entertaining, Baroque in Hackney. Her debut poetry collection, which Eyewear recommends as one of its books of 2008, is Me and the Dead. Called "stylish, vivacious and darkly hilarious" by the Poetry Book Society, it is published by Salt, one of the significant poetry presses in the UK.

Evans-Bush has always struck me as a true original, one foot in New York, one in London (metaphorically), bestriding the pond with a wonky, warm charisma that has made her loved, and respected, by nearly all the younger generations of British poets now emerging (that is, everyone born since 1960 or so).

I've enjoyed her poetry since I first came across it, and have included it in anthologies, online, and even awarded it an Oxfam national poetry contest prize. If you're looking for a poet who combines a smart sense of style, form, humour, and heart, she's your gal.

A Crack in the Feeling

Broken in their box, quotidian eggs
— date-stamped, unusable. The omelette's off.

An ostrich-egg-in-dome, and plastic grass.
A dino egg, the raptors not drawn right.
These keepsakes can be lifted out of what
was meant to be (that bursting universe).
The robin, just a colour-sample (say
robin's-egg blue, a can of paint) : I never
see them lying cracked upon a path,
it seems too much to hope for now.
it seems too much to hope for now. I like
your eggs arranged in circles on the ground
(the largest first, then smaller outer rings
like planets with unfledged inhabitants
whose language can't be spoken, round a sun
that spreads its light like yolk along the lawn),
duck-eggs, and seven empty pigeon shells
whose hatchlings hang arse-up along a wire.
The ceiling leans toward them like a sky
whose robin's-egg-blue arc has just one fault.
Before your outer galaxy I quail:
its compass points — ambition, comfort, luck,
a ghost, desire — are shifting on the chart.

O egging (over) of my pudding (proof
whereof is where ? I ask). My open mouth.
O germ, O ovoid calm, O heavy world.
My love my love.
This rubber egg : the shtick
a child would use, to beat the laughter out.

poem by Katy-Evans Bush
from Me and The Dead; reprinted with permission of the publisher and author (note this version has a few variant lines due to formatting online)