What do you think?
Rate this book
Feed
Feed is the fourth book in the Teebs tetralogy. It's an epistolary recipe for the main character, a poem of nourishment, and a jaunty walk through New York's High Line park, with the lines, stanzas, paragraphs, dialogue, and registers approximating the park's cultivated gardens of wildness. Among its questions, Feed asks what's the difference between being alone and being lonely? Can you ever really be friends with an ex? How do you make perfect mac & cheese? Feed is an ode of reconciliation to the wild inconsistencies of a northeast spring, a frustrating season of back-and-forth, of thaw and blizzard, but with a faith that even amidst the mess, it knows where it's going.
84 pages, Unknown Binding
First published November 5, 2019
41 people are currently reading
1448 people want to read
About the author
Tommy Pico
8 books331 followersTommy “Teebs” Pico is author of the books IRL (Birds, LLC, 2016), Nature Poem (Tin House Books, 2017), Junk (forthcoming 2018 from Tin House Books), the zine series Hey, Teebs and the chapbook app absentMINDR (VerbalVisual 2014). He was the founder and editor in chief of birdsong, an antiracist/queer-positive collective, small press, and zine that published art and writing from 2008-2013. He was a Queer/Art/Mentors inaugural fellow, 2013 Lambda Literary fellow in poetry, 2016 Ace Hotel New York “Dear Reader” resident, 2016 Tin House summer poetry scholar, was longlisted for Cosmonauts Avenue’s inaugural poetry prize (judged by Claudia Rankine), and has poems in BOMB, Poetry magazine, Tin House, and elsewhere. He’s read for New York’s iconic Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church, the KGB reading series, and Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) amongst many others, and has been profiled in Fusion, Nylon, and the New Yorker. Originally from the Viejas Indian reservation of the Kumeyaay nation, he now lives in Brooklyn where he co-curates the reading series Poets With Attitude (PWA) with Morgan Parker at the Ace Hotel, co-hosts the podcast Food 4 Thot, and is a contributing editor at Literary Hub.
Photo credit: Niqui Carter
Photo credit: Niqui Carter
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 79 reviews
February 12, 2021
feels like a stream of consciousness, feels like texting a friend in the middle of the night, feels like coming home
there's so much packed in here! heartbreak, colonialism, dating, climate crisis, relationships with food, modern loneliness, rise of the far right! it's so emotionally taxing while being stupidly funny!
there's so much packed in here! heartbreak, colonialism, dating, climate crisis, relationships with food, modern loneliness, rise of the far right! it's so emotionally taxing while being stupidly funny!
November 12, 2019
Tommy Pico continues to be my favorite queer poetic voice and "Feed," the fourth book in his series is no exception. Dealing with climate change, love, aliens, and Beyonce, all in his stream-of-consciousness voice that resonates deeply with the experiences of young people, this book is remarkable for continuing the way in which Pico uses words, and the absence of them, to bring color to being a young person in 2019.
However, this time Pico's voice is a bit off. Wherein past books he has really dove deep into the feeling of romantic and erotic absence queer people feel as they grow up and enter and re-enter love relationships, this collection seems to approach hesitantly, from a cynical p.o.v. Whether because he has succeeded or because he has fallen in love, this book just doesn't seem to capture the emotional depth of crushing and loving and seeking out love that "IRL" and his other books did.
Nonetheless, the book continues Pico's voice, a voice that resonates deeply in so many ways, and, so, is definitely a book worth reading.
However, this time Pico's voice is a bit off. Wherein past books he has really dove deep into the feeling of romantic and erotic absence queer people feel as they grow up and enter and re-enter love relationships, this collection seems to approach hesitantly, from a cynical p.o.v. Whether because he has succeeded or because he has fallen in love, this book just doesn't seem to capture the emotional depth of crushing and loving and seeking out love that "IRL" and his other books did.
Nonetheless, the book continues Pico's voice, a voice that resonates deeply in so many ways, and, so, is definitely a book worth reading.
November 11, 2022
A delight.
August 8, 2023
i love reading tommy pico and will keep doing it, what a treat and a delight
July 28, 2022
A walk with music, cosmological theories, plant names, farting and sentences concerning the state of the world, always in capital letters, thrown all along the poems. But also thoughts concerning being alone and being lonely; the possibilities of being friends with your ex etc.
Here, Pico writes something closer to prose in the form of poetry than poetry itself. Do I care? Not at all, or else, I wouldn't mind reading Anne Carlson, who I love to read. It is just that in Feed, I sometimes felt like I was staring at something like an abstract painting, not knowing exactly what I was reading.
Here, Pico writes something closer to prose in the form of poetry than poetry itself. Do I care? Not at all, or else, I wouldn't mind reading Anne Carlson, who I love to read. It is just that in Feed, I sometimes felt like I was staring at something like an abstract painting, not knowing exactly what I was reading.
April 5, 2020
Let go
of the overgrowth, the unhealthy attachment
to attachment
for the sake of attachment
Imagine letting loose
the expectation to keep white
shoes radiation
.
.
Is it fitting irony or sweet poetic justice that I accidentally spilled boxed red wine on my copy of *Feed* last night?
Tommy Pico writes about hunger both physical (food, music, sex) and emotional (breakup, loneliness, intimacy) in this rush of poetry that feels like a nonstop feed of social media posts yet it's nothing less than intoxicating and often deeply profound. He makes you laugh and pant and sweat and feel your deepest loss on nearly every page.
*Feed* is the fourth installment in his much lauded tetralogy so I'm reading these all out of order--dangit! Happy National Poetry Month!
of the overgrowth, the unhealthy attachment
to attachment
for the sake of attachment
Imagine letting loose
the expectation to keep white
shoes radiation
.
.
Is it fitting irony or sweet poetic justice that I accidentally spilled boxed red wine on my copy of *Feed* last night?
Tommy Pico writes about hunger both physical (food, music, sex) and emotional (breakup, loneliness, intimacy) in this rush of poetry that feels like a nonstop feed of social media posts yet it's nothing less than intoxicating and often deeply profound. He makes you laugh and pant and sweat and feel your deepest loss on nearly every page.
*Feed* is the fourth installment in his much lauded tetralogy so I'm reading these all out of order--dangit! Happy National Poetry Month!
August 2, 2021
Dizzying in the best way.
September 1, 2020
Fave quotes:
P1 I was fully head over banana peels
P5 I'm going to keep this short/ and sweet bc I'm tall and BITTER
P7 gutter sluttery
P36 A Streetcar Named I'm Tired
P78 The father the son and the biblical three-way
P1 I was fully head over banana peels
P5 I'm going to keep this short/ and sweet bc I'm tall and BITTER
P7 gutter sluttery
P36 A Streetcar Named I'm Tired
P78 The father the son and the biblical three-way
November 26, 2019
Pico brews an intoxicating mix from vignettes, confessions, and a steamy infusion of slang and (sometimes too cute) plays on words. I tried this book right after reading his companion book Junk, which enthralled me and which I liked much better than Feed. They're both long strings of fragments, but Feed offers more stories, more continuity, more pop culture references, and more intrusions of rather predictable political commentary. Less lyricism, less power, less sex. Given the predominance of stories in Feed, it's surprising how little they reveal, but by the end one feels a bit of connection to the people who appear over and over: Pico's mother, a female friend, and a lover with which he is breaking up.
The pedantic digressions into science or history make you feel trapped by the bore at a cocktail party, but Pico's fascination with inhabitable planets in the universe and the lack of extraterrestrial visitors mirrors his loneliness and lack of a love partner. Perhaps there's hopes in his statement, "The dark, in fact, is teeming with life."
The pedantic digressions into science or history make you feel trapped by the bore at a cocktail party, but Pico's fascination with inhabitable planets in the universe and the lack of extraterrestrial visitors mirrors his loneliness and lack of a love partner. Perhaps there's hopes in his statement, "The dark, in fact, is teeming with life."
February 1, 2022
First thought was “This book is literally not for me.”
Probably fifteen pages in I just started to like Teebs more and more, like he was inviting you to think of him as your hot + annoying friend. I didn’t understand going in that it’s essentially a prose poem novella about a breakup, and it took me a while to notice the stylistic change-ups. One minute he’s Clarice Lispector-ing the reader with stream-of-consciousness non-sentences; then he’s Tao Lin, perfectly describing the experience of seeing your ex’s Twitter handle for the first time in a long time; then he’s Thomas Pynchon, “and by then the edible is hitting like a gif of Daffy Duck in pjs pounding his butt against a wall.”
There are moments that are too cute, like leaving in typos from the first draft and then commenting on them. But then it’s some of those moments that don’t work that cultivate the kind of effortless magic tricks the book is genuinely littered with. Very hilarious and touching.
Probably fifteen pages in I just started to like Teebs more and more, like he was inviting you to think of him as your hot + annoying friend. I didn’t understand going in that it’s essentially a prose poem novella about a breakup, and it took me a while to notice the stylistic change-ups. One minute he’s Clarice Lispector-ing the reader with stream-of-consciousness non-sentences; then he’s Tao Lin, perfectly describing the experience of seeing your ex’s Twitter handle for the first time in a long time; then he’s Thomas Pynchon, “and by then the edible is hitting like a gif of Daffy Duck in pjs pounding his butt against a wall.”
There are moments that are too cute, like leaving in typos from the first draft and then commenting on them. But then it’s some of those moments that don’t work that cultivate the kind of effortless magic tricks the book is genuinely littered with. Very hilarious and touching.
August 4, 2019
Reading FEED feels like receiving a meandering text message from your funniest friend, or if Twitter didn't have a character limit. Tommy Pico's genius is present in the way he is able to catch the reader off-guard with uproariously funny lines that lead into serious philosophical quandaries, such as the difference between loneliness and being alone, or the possibility of intelligent life on other planets. FEED is a book that is at once raunchy, irreverent, haunted by the contemporary moment, and reaches for profundity at every turn.
May 24, 2020
Read a bit cheesy for me, though I'm beginning to wonder if my growing cynicism makes me doubt what even objectively good art is. I started reading this work intrigued by overt gay themes and fancy words. But quickly, I found moments where Pico's stanzas or thoughts would end on an "ooh that's clever" type of note, as in a freestyle rap, and this bolstered cheesiness.
From the first page:
"the worst American
candy And what is candy, but a crush?"
Really?
Later, Pico follows the tracks of some 2000's playlist starting with Beyonce's XO. The ensuing thoughts mimic her lyrics, but I missed the connection.
Pico also addresses the reader throughout, but somehow I didn't feel like the reader he was addressing. Mostly, the book (collection of thoughts?) runs in a self-aware stream of consciousness type fashion, perhaps so self-aware that it forgets to remember its point? idk if that makes sense, but I found myself wondering what the purpose of this harsh, diaristic and seemingly unedited form was.
That said, there were a few moments I liked: This line in particular stood out to me. "This is going to sound like an inelegant complaint but I’ve grown road weary khaki thin sleeveless hooded t-shirt city made of strangers." I enjoyed the hyper-contemporary use of language, "iykwim" "shd" "af" but even this stretched too far for me with "biiiinnnnch" making me think only of memes. There were also moments of wtf, who is this person that I hadn't heard of beofre who writes about growing up in east county San Diego and then dated someone who lived in the Taaffe Lofts in BK. Fun connection to draw, but ultimately did not feel connected to the work. Always trust Julie's recs though so will give another of his books a go.
From the first page:
"the worst American
candy And what is candy, but a crush?"
Really?
Later, Pico follows the tracks of some 2000's playlist starting with Beyonce's XO. The ensuing thoughts mimic her lyrics, but I missed the connection.
Pico also addresses the reader throughout, but somehow I didn't feel like the reader he was addressing. Mostly, the book (collection of thoughts?) runs in a self-aware stream of consciousness type fashion, perhaps so self-aware that it forgets to remember its point? idk if that makes sense, but I found myself wondering what the purpose of this harsh, diaristic and seemingly unedited form was.
That said, there were a few moments I liked: This line in particular stood out to me. "This is going to sound like an inelegant complaint but I’ve grown road weary khaki thin sleeveless hooded t-shirt city made of strangers." I enjoyed the hyper-contemporary use of language, "iykwim" "shd" "af" but even this stretched too far for me with "biiiinnnnch" making me think only of memes. There were also moments of wtf, who is this person that I hadn't heard of beofre who writes about growing up in east county San Diego and then dated someone who lived in the Taaffe Lofts in BK. Fun connection to draw, but ultimately did not feel connected to the work. Always trust Julie's recs though so will give another of his books a go.
December 1, 2019
This was a breathtaking ride. I read all four pieces in Tommy Pico's Teebs Tetralogy in the past 24-hours, and I am blown away at the depth and breadth of a work that teases itself as being so surface level.
I am in awe of the way Pico has managed to create four pieces that feel so separate yet so connected, how each piece stands on its own yet feels perfectly presaged and echoed throughout the rest of the work. I love the way he plays with form, how each work is styled so distinctly yet you can tell they all come from the same artist. The number of references and allusions he fits into these pages speaks to such a deep well of knowledge and experience.
I don't feel qualified to speak on the quality of poetry, but I can say that what I read was a piece of art.
I am in awe of the way Pico has managed to create four pieces that feel so separate yet so connected, how each piece stands on its own yet feels perfectly presaged and echoed throughout the rest of the work. I love the way he plays with form, how each work is styled so distinctly yet you can tell they all come from the same artist. The number of references and allusions he fits into these pages speaks to such a deep well of knowledge and experience.
I don't feel qualified to speak on the quality of poetry, but I can say that what I read was a piece of art.
December 16, 2022
I really loved this. It is super fast and savory- like a long playlist and rhythmic beat, interlocking spirals of ah-has and oh-nos from the present. Super funny and hashtag relatable. I was pleasantly surprised to be honest I remember flipping through some of his other work and feeling it read too much like texts and twitter feeds, which isn’t baaad but wasnt what i wanted, i probably didnt give them enough of a chance.
May 2, 2023
Wow!
Having recently (in the last 4 months) gotten back into poetry, I continue to be amazed by the poets I'm discovering. The poetry I learned in school (in the 90s), while pretty good, all followed a similar pattern and style. I really appreciate how much poetry has expanded to include different styles and poets.
Tommy Pico's poetry is like nothing I've read before. I love the irreverence, whit and also (sometimes) seriousness of their poems.
Having recently (in the last 4 months) gotten back into poetry, I continue to be amazed by the poets I'm discovering. The poetry I learned in school (in the 90s), while pretty good, all followed a similar pattern and style. I really appreciate how much poetry has expanded to include different styles and poets.
Tommy Pico's poetry is like nothing I've read before. I love the irreverence, whit and also (sometimes) seriousness of their poems.
September 22, 2020
Teebs, what an artist! I loved so much about this long poem, how he wove together place, the High Line in New York City, humor, food, and music (I had to stop and listen to each song he mentioned so it took longer to read). The plants on the High Line, in three voices, like a braid. His theme on alone vs. lonely, and interspersed are the lines in all caps on social commentary. Pico is an important voice representing Queer, Indigenous youth today.
January 17, 2021
Wow! I loved this long form poem!
The podcast Food 4 Thot made me curious about Pico's poetry, and I'm so happy my ~local library~ stocks this book. His use of text talk (iykwim) paired with elegant reflections on devastating headlines made me fall in love with poetry again. Thanks for this super contemporary take on a genre I'm committed to reading more of this year.
The podcast Food 4 Thot made me curious about Pico's poetry, and I'm so happy my ~local library~ stocks this book. His use of text talk (iykwim) paired with elegant reflections on devastating headlines made me fall in love with poetry again. Thanks for this super contemporary take on a genre I'm committed to reading more of this year.
December 31, 2019
A truly stunning standalone, but an even more impressive conclusion to this tetralogy. I'm so happy I picked up IRL and continued to this grand finale book of poetry.
April 4, 2020
Another wonderful release from my favourite current poet.
January 29, 2021
3.5 stars
March 3, 2022
good ingredients. good planets. bad planets. good people. bad people. good time. fun play. life.
February 12, 2020
What I wouldn’t give to see this performed! Wide-ranging, funny, flow-of-subconsciousness poetry.
November 14, 2023
I have never read anything quite like the Teebs tetralogy and even if I didn’t always totally follow or get every pivot and turn in this book, it is still a really enjoyable experience to root around in Pico’s brain for a while. Loved the insights into the history of NYC and the High Line, loneliness, and the central role of food and consumption in our lives. Also, this made me hungry. Will be very curious to see what is up next for this gifted author.
August 3, 2020
Layers upon layers upon layers. I think this book could easily have been two or three book-length poems instead of just one.
August 30, 2019
Pico's latest work is another stream of poetic consciousness that explores being friends with your ex, hookups, family life (and death), and the philosophies of what lies beyond Earth's orbit-- or if there's anything at all. Interspersed within it all are real life news headlines that land a punch to the gut every time you see them, a reminder of what's happening in our world during our seemingly ordinary lives. Pico manages to include his wit and humor despite all of the seriousness inside.
March 30, 2021
WOW! Love this man.
May 14, 2020
got this book in the middle of slowly tao lin's taipei; never went back! there were some parts of that book i liked (whenever he wakes up and readjusts himself to where he is) but overall kinda a slog. i guess i'm briefly reviewing taipei here since i'm not gonna finish it
but! i love feed a lot. it's like tao lin/ben lerner autofiction mumblecore being young making ur way through a city but... feels more sincere, vulnerable, less crafted (i think i mean this neutrally, i like lerner's carefulness), part of that is tone (very casual, lots of internet speak (that to me didn't feel forced at all)) but part of that is also maybe poem format letting connections/recurrences feel more casual, natural, plus ambiguity of speaker vs. narrator/avatar
so raw and springy! spring in nyc! i want to feel there and young and passionate and liquid and uncertain and full of possibilities!! "one of those magical spring early sherbet skies where the city warps forward into its summer self before dipping back down into the lows of tomorrow" spring as rebirth/change is trite but it feels very apt and multifaceted here, where it's not just exciting and beautiful but also tense, layered w other themes
unexpected that in context of spring rather than being about new relationship, more about developing an old relationship into a friendship "death cycle interwoven with the spring. it took time to forget who we were together, so we could come back with intention and not surrender"
the high line, "the city to nature. the deathless cycle of seasons to this final second." seasonality vs. linearity, latter is like industrialization and like imperialism?? i wonder if his other book nature boy addresses this more head on, pico seems to buck stereotypes associating natives w nature/seasons where he writes about being native with this sense of entropy, fear of death/fatalism, being severed from the past: lack of food traditions
the space refs invoked loneliness but were also really interesting in the context of imperialism: recurring question of, are we alone in the universe? if another civilization were out there, would we have found each other by now, made ourselves known to each other, been at war? "to have engines of appetites in a city in a state in a nation in a world in a solar system in a galaxy in a universe where the only constant is change"
this book is definitely not neat -- soo many different structures/recurrences, the tracklist, the headlines -- but i feel like i wouldn't change a thing about it? i want to write messily now
just some beautiful unhinged diction/wordplay: "i buttered around the city" "gutter sluttery. glittering sea of one night stand and kick stand dicks" "the thighs of his face by which i mean his eyes" "mewing into the void"
but! i love feed a lot. it's like tao lin/ben lerner autofiction mumblecore being young making ur way through a city but... feels more sincere, vulnerable, less crafted (i think i mean this neutrally, i like lerner's carefulness), part of that is tone (very casual, lots of internet speak (that to me didn't feel forced at all)) but part of that is also maybe poem format letting connections/recurrences feel more casual, natural, plus ambiguity of speaker vs. narrator/avatar
so raw and springy! spring in nyc! i want to feel there and young and passionate and liquid and uncertain and full of possibilities!! "one of those magical spring early sherbet skies where the city warps forward into its summer self before dipping back down into the lows of tomorrow" spring as rebirth/change is trite but it feels very apt and multifaceted here, where it's not just exciting and beautiful but also tense, layered w other themes
unexpected that in context of spring rather than being about new relationship, more about developing an old relationship into a friendship "death cycle interwoven with the spring. it took time to forget who we were together, so we could come back with intention and not surrender"
the high line, "the city to nature. the deathless cycle of seasons to this final second." seasonality vs. linearity, latter is like industrialization and like imperialism?? i wonder if his other book nature boy addresses this more head on, pico seems to buck stereotypes associating natives w nature/seasons where he writes about being native with this sense of entropy, fear of death/fatalism, being severed from the past: lack of food traditions
the space refs invoked loneliness but were also really interesting in the context of imperialism: recurring question of, are we alone in the universe? if another civilization were out there, would we have found each other by now, made ourselves known to each other, been at war? "to have engines of appetites in a city in a state in a nation in a world in a solar system in a galaxy in a universe where the only constant is change"
this book is definitely not neat -- soo many different structures/recurrences, the tracklist, the headlines -- but i feel like i wouldn't change a thing about it? i want to write messily now
just some beautiful unhinged diction/wordplay: "i buttered around the city" "gutter sluttery. glittering sea of one night stand and kick stand dicks" "the thighs of his face by which i mean his eyes" "mewing into the void"
August 21, 2023
How does an author choose between writing an essay and writing a story, penning a poem or penning a memoir? Well, if that writer is Tommy Pico, he doesn't choose. He does every form at the same time. His masterful hybrid "Feed" is at once a rhapsodic reflection on current history shaped by a past that's familial, erotic, and political and a meta love letter to an ex who manages to be both a guy named Leo and somehow the reader, too. Pico's ability to effortlessly segue from meditations on loneliness to capsule reactions of pop music to jarring all-cap headlines to Latin names for plants to probabilities of lifeforms on distant planets is a stunning illustration of how the streams of consciousness which provide the most thrilling rushes are the ones which flow the most freely. "Feed" embodies the kind of non-linear, non-conformist, pro-queer, progressive thought that's constantly under attack by Republican legislators nationwide nowadays. "It's July 4th and we've said no / to imperialism but yes / to public sex." There's a revolutionary sentiment underlying "Feed" and personally I'm all for it. IFNWIM (AITYD)
November 2, 2024
My favorite poets are sensualists; and it's especially nice when they overtly evoke the senses through both the cultural objects and institutions that excite them (e.g., music, food, sex, drugs).
In this 79-page poem (arguably chapter-ized as a playlist of 19 songs), Pico gravitates toward what simultaneously makes us feel and think - undermining any whiff that a duality could exist between those things.
We think and feel our way through identity, history and politics...as we cook.
We think and feel about meaning and relationships...whenever we brush up against each other.
He thinks and feels the losses and gains of his life (and culture) while dancing to his music.
As 79-page poems do, the weight of the words grows through their accumulation. By the last third of the book, there're so many - all running in and through their own webs of meaning. But the book's great power comes in what else has been accumulated - what's been accumulated...in the body (in his and in mine).
And. If you'd like to listen as you read (or just groove "with" the poet whenever you'd like), here's the collected playlist on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3VN...
In this 79-page poem (arguably chapter-ized as a playlist of 19 songs), Pico gravitates toward what simultaneously makes us feel and think - undermining any whiff that a duality could exist between those things.
We think and feel our way through identity, history and politics...as we cook.
We think and feel about meaning and relationships...whenever we brush up against each other.
He thinks and feels the losses and gains of his life (and culture) while dancing to his music.
As 79-page poems do, the weight of the words grows through their accumulation. By the last third of the book, there're so many - all running in and through their own webs of meaning. But the book's great power comes in what else has been accumulated - what's been accumulated...in the body (in his and in mine).
And. If you'd like to listen as you read (or just groove "with" the poet whenever you'd like), here's the collected playlist on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3VN...
November 19, 2021
Feed is wonderful. It is the feeling of being late 20s/early 30s and figuring it out.
Written as a stream of conscious poem featuring a playlist (which I loved, maybe because I already loved 80% of the songs) and a plantlists (including pronunciation guides), it is hilarious. Favorite one liners include: "Streetcar named I'm Tired" and "FINE, twist my arm you bullies I'll put on pants".
Topics addressed: breakups, New York city life, indigenous and queer culture, but the big questions is What is the difference between being alone and lonely? A question even more valid after 2020.
Note: there are a lot of popculture references in this book. So if you want to read it (and you should), do it sooner rather than later
Written as a stream of conscious poem featuring a playlist (which I loved, maybe because I already loved 80% of the songs) and a plantlists (including pronunciation guides), it is hilarious. Favorite one liners include: "Streetcar named I'm Tired" and "FINE, twist my arm you bullies I'll put on pants".
Topics addressed: breakups, New York city life, indigenous and queer culture, but the big questions is What is the difference between being alone and lonely? A question even more valid after 2020.
Note: there are a lot of popculture references in this book. So if you want to read it (and you should), do it sooner rather than later
Displaying 1 - 30 of 79 reviews