Books published by Eyewear Publishing

Poetry. "[T]here's a working collie in (this poet) / who chases feet sound rhythm and form / and gladly burns in the fire and flow" aptly captures some of the dynamic in this astonishing collection. "[S]omeone said sadness / is the shadow of a cloud / another that there is more than sadness here / the sun itself has vanished" maps an empathic way of breaking into pain in Paris. In "the female deer have antlers" Finnegan asks "where does this stillness come from"--as you read the poems in HALF-OPEN DOOR, don't be surprised if an affirmative relation to being and to the world announces itself. "Set alongside pathways, rivers and through half-open doorways that invite active transformation, James Finnegan's debut collection maps metaphoric journeys of quest, loss of light, faith, identity and art. These poems... comment on each other and extend the metaphor of his half-open door as they traverse the today, yesterday and tomorrow of the poet's search for the meaning hidden in his multiple selves."--Deirdre Hines "[James Finnegan's] poems aredoorways into stillness, where the cut and thrust of the world is forced to withdraw, and time slows to a moment lit only by the keen and considered focus of the poet's eye... This is a stunning collection from a lyrical Irish heart, and a poet in full command and in full embrace of his art."--Dr. Liam Campbell

A queer manifesto for reimagining traditional poetic form through the historical formlessness and electricity of queer and lesbian sexual pleasure. The poems propose sex as a way to connect and disconnect; sexual fantasy as a way to virtually transform the city; and the citation of LGBTQI+ literary ancestors as a way to make a home.

Poetry. A beautiful, formidably intelligent yet profoundly inviting book, Alex Houen's much-anticipated RING CYCLE brilliantly orchestrates its many motifs across poems that move from the metaphysical to the intimate to the droll sometimes within one poem. Houen is a poet of lavish linguistic sensuality, his poems vibrating with his attunement to fissures within the self, between lovers; salutes to friends; romantic skirmish; the ambient dread of our moment. Houen's brilliantly mash-upping mind encompasses pirated DVDs, Dryden and Alexander McQueen, conceits poetic and contemporary and untimely and unheimlich. A book of enormous range, simultaneously lush and austere, RING CYCLE tracks the perversities of erotic and filial suspension alongside questions of conscience and aesthetics.

Poetry. Wesley Franz's rich and thought-provoking first collection draws on his background in maths and science to consider other dimensions of reality and existence, consciousness, the relationships of space and time, and human moral responsibility, from a range of logical, physical, and aesthetic perspectives. Questions are asked as to how well we use our time individually and collectively, from close up and afar, with always the reminder that answers can be found in the simple, yet extraordinarily beautiful gifts nature has already given us.

Poetry. Fiction. An epic for an age without heroes, DID YOU PUT THE WEASELS OUT? is a celebration of the modern mythology that takes place in every small town. A modern update of the 8th century Gaelic saga The Ta-in, written in Alexander Pushkin's fiendish 'Onegin sonnet, ' Niall Bourke takes strict form to the extreme, and turns it into a hilarious, sharp-sighted satire of ordinary people's neuroses, indulgences and four-AM fears. Abandon your preconceptions: Bourke's prose-poetry operatic-verse-novel breaks all the rules--while managing to keep to them at the same time. Both traditional and undeniably of our time, DID YOU PUT THE WEASELS OUT? is poetry that celebrates the playfulness and uncertainty of being alive.

Poetry. Asian & Asian American Studies. Usha Kishore's third poetry collection, IMMIGRANT, is gleaned from nearly two decades of writing. This book examines the political, cultural and linguistic spaces of first-generation South Asian immigrants to the UK, and illustrates that to live in the diaspora is to occupy a spectral space, to be haunted by the ghosts of history, empire and colonialism, to be a ghost flitting in and out of spaces called nations, to be homeless, to be caught between. The binary perspectives of assimilation and marginalization recur in these poems as Kishore documents the politics of being an immigrant professional interacting with the harsh realities of racism and discrimination as she draws from her experience as an English teacher and tries to chart her poetic space in an imagined borderland. Richly experiential and languishing in language, these are poems that speak to our quest for home.

Literary Nonfiction. Art. Film. Music. Twenty years after the murder of The Notorious B.I.G., THE MAN ON HIGH melds the creative and the critical, and questions what legacy means in the 21st century. Contemplating Biggie through the lens of both skateboarding and poetry, Jeff Alessandrelli's THE MAN ON HIGH illuminates how The Notorious B.I.G. will always be rapping in the present tense. "In an era where the imagination is bent on nostalgia, the '90s is the number one fetish object, and events like the OJ Simpson trial and the LA Riots are being rehashed in Adidas track suits and retro band merch (I'm writing this in a Sade t-shirt I bought in a suburb of St. Louis over the summer), to the extent that Kendall Jenner tried to sell t-shirts with photos of Biggie on them with no permission from his estate and played naive when she got shut down, we need the complex sincerity of THE MAN ON HIGH. This is a rare example of a black musician who helped set the tonal landscape for an entire subculture actually being given credit and proper attention and love. You'll come away craving a skateboard and some headphones, and feeling Notorious." --Harmony Holiday "A refreshingly heartfelt and multivalent treatise on influence, inspiration, and individuality, Alessandrelli's THE MAN ON HIGH waxes and melds in tribute to a true cultural icon and iconoclast, the B.I.G., along the way reconsidering the nature of the many frames that give us faith amid an era of 'mere numerical arbitrariness.'"--Blake Butler

Set in the Cool Britannia period, here is a refreshing return to good old police work and a time of relative good times. By turns shocking, horrific, and blackly comical, this is a crime fan's feast, and a new series and heroine to pursue.

Poetry. Asian & Asian American Studies. Moving through past, present and future, this is a family history that journeys between America, Pakistan, modern Europe and even into space. Faisal Mohyuddin delves into the past of his parents and their neighbours in Pakistan and India in a self-consciously impossible attempt to find some way of belonging to a place that is lost. Moving from elegant ghazals of lament to stuttering, disjointed phrases of yearning, Mohyuddin portrays with restrained emotion the complexities of what it is to be displaced, geographically, spiritually, psychologically. With moments of sorrow interspersed with unsettling humour, deep familial love and celebrations of beauty, it is a story recognizable to any who have felt displaced in a new world. If the personal is political, then this is truly poetry for our times. "THE DISPLACED CHILDREN OF DISPLACED CHILDREN demands your attention from its title, which speaks directly to a specific immigrant reflexivity, the way the seam of placelessness both separates and connects generations. In one poem the speaker 'forgets the Urdu / word for loneliness, forgets the Punjabi word for / loneliness, forgets the English word for loneliness.' In another, he finds himself 'holding two large rocks, // looking for something else / sacred to smash open.' These aren't hopeless poems, but they have known hopelessness. What a marvel it is then, this work (and it is work) to turn back toward joy, to create joy despite (or to spite) those forces that would conspire against it. Here, starlight travels centuries just to dazzle us. The son of a father becomes the father of a son. Eternity exists only in mirrors, the book says, then demonstrates. I am such an eager student of this book, this poet, and this light."--Kaveh Akbar "Faisal Mohyuddin's debut collection speaks to the desire to forge a wholeness in a world that seems, too often, to be splitting at the seams. Written with an abiding sense of empathy, and charged with an unmistakable longing, these poems dissolve the boundaries between historical record, memory, and the imagination. Mohyuddin memorialises the suffering of the displaced, while at the same time transforming grief into song, heartache into story, and hunger into wisdom. This collection wrung out my tired heart."--Colum McCann "In these poems, Faisal Mohyuddin assembles a lyrical narrative using historical fact and ethereal longing as material a longing that sprouts from, or settles into, the unlikeliest crevices of the historical-personal. For every gash on the map of partition, there is a gap closing between ceramic tiles affixed on the floor by a mother as she speaks of staying close; for every good king, there is an assassin by the same name; for every assassin, a poet; and for every loss, a legend. What I admire the most in this work is how it confronts and diminishes hubris and elevates the quality of desire to echo the idiom of the mystic 'a longing with an energy and weight all its own, a longing that resides in song or sigh, in prayer or embrace, in caw / or coo.'"--Shadab Zeest Hashmi

Literary Nonfiction. Young Adult. Art. Film. THE MONKMAN AND SEAGULL QUIZ BOOK is bound to be a classic: a book that challenges everyone to join in and play it. In this, their first quiz book, astounding polymaths Monkman & Seagull are finally on the same team--and their opponent is you and your friends and family. Containing over 540 questions ranging across space and time, this book sees the devilish wit of our brainy boffins put to the page. With tricks and tests to taunt even the smuggest sofa-shouter, it's packed with puzzles and pop quizzes, on everything from particle physics to philharmonics--football to film. Featuring questions from BBC Radio 4's infamous '6.48am Puzzle For Today' as well as tons of entirely new rounds, it's sure to perplex even the most dedicated pub-quizzers. See if you're smarter than an eleven-year-old in theprimary school round, test your reaction time with the Starter For 10s, or stick to traditional British stalwarts in the Newspaper Quiz and Pub Quiz sections. Monkman & Seagull, that dazzling duo, deliver the best Quiz Book of this, or any, year. "Monkman & Seagull show that a lot of knowledge is a wonderful thing and they do it with style, charm and endearing gusto."--Stephen Fry "What Watson & Crick were to DNA, and Burke & Hare were to grave-robbing, Monkman & Seagull are to quizzing."--Louis Theroux

Drama. Translated and Entirely Updated by Rosanna Hildyard. Though ostensibly Surrealist, Alfred Jarry's 1888 play Ubu Roi bears disconcertingly close resemblance to America in 2017. This new version, which brings Ubu to the USA, is a bombastic, irreverent romp through the misadventures of the titular usurper of the White House, with a sharp eye for materialism and political infighting. Slightly Shakespearean, mostly scatological; the ridiculous UBU TRUMP is more than a spoof. This satirical translation-palimpsest forms a terrifyingly relevant comment on our world turned upside down.

Poetry. Twenty years in the writing, THE KNIVES OF VILLALEJO is Matthew Stewart's first full collection. Stretching from suburban Surrey to the vineyards of Extremadura, Spain, its poems' delicate syllablic structures belie the vast wells of emotion beneath. Throughout the collection, brevity and apparent simplicity pack an unexpected punch -- each line, each poem, a perfectly poised, discrete drop, held together by the tensions of home and exile, then and now, before and after. Together, they form a pent-up storm.

Fiction. California Interest. Aliens, gods and artists--these are the figures that populate the numerous worlds of these exciting six stories. Gifted storyteller Sam Eisenstein explores the cosmic and psychic forces at work behind the fac, ade of everyday life. From a man whose dog charges him with taking down the president of the United States, to a Billy Pilgrim-like traveller in time and space, the collection speculates on dualities of love and lust and fate and free will. When you can't count on reality, you have to wonder who's really in charge here. This is a compelling fusion of sci-fi, fantasy, and literary genres, a brilliant new vision of short fiction for the 21st century.

Poetry. Music. Art. Consisting of printed and handwritten lyrics and poems alongside impersonal doodles and sketches, LITTLE BLACK BOOK is a portrait of the musician behind the on-stage glamour and performance. Designed to accompany Sarah's debut album, released this year, this is an inspiring and informal glimpse into a creative mind.

Poetry. FIGHT SONGS exposes the rusted underbelly of the American Midwest, as experienced by young men, brutal cops, suicide cases, junkies, lovers, and minorities seeking justice. At turns as stark and thrilling as a Stooges track, as brutally desolate as a burnt-out Detroit factory, this is also an elegy for Michigan's vast and gorgeous wilderness. Freeman's poetry is unsparingly lyrical, and ethically limned with ecological, political, and local concerns. This is the riposte to Trump's vision we never expected--one that hails from the same husked landscape that elevated him, but this time, yearning for justice, hopeful of beauty among the bruised fighters leaning on frayed ropes.

Poetry. THE EVENING ENTERTAINMENT shifts back and forth through history -- the personal and familial, and that of anonymous characters from recent and ancient past, going about the business of seeking fleeting happiness in their quotidian lives. This debut collection, 30 years in the writing, is divided into three sections. The first features an array of people, from a medieval monk to existential Sussex surfers, engaged in quiet, heroic and sometimes bizarre pastimes; the second travels back to the poet's childhood and early adulthood in suburban London and the North of Ireland; before leading to the final, poignant third section, in which the now-grown speaker must engage with the loss of his father during his battle against dementia.

Poetry. FORTUNE COOKIE is Jenna Clake's debut collection. These poems deal with the everyday and ordinary: living with a partner, friendships, and chronic insomnia. At the same time, they contain confusing, absurd worlds: animals can talk, boyfriends are imagined or might be seals, and jellyfish are slowly taking over. At once humorous, poignant and unsettling, this collection considers how we might make sense of a world that really makes no sense at all.

Literary Nonfiction. A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF SILICON VALLEY follows the history of the people exploited, displaced, and made obsolete by the tech industry, from the colonization of the Bay Area to the present day. From the first Macintosh to the rise of social media, A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF SILICON VALLEY peels back the curtain on an industry that brands itself as visionary yet which may be chipping away at the foundations of society, including our democratic institutions.

Poetry. Edited by Todd Swift and Kelly Davio. The inaugural anthology of poems by fifty rising stars in the UK and Ireland, this volume gathers the work of the most important, interesting new poets working today.