Oh dear, another one of those days - Remembrance Day 2011 will be another, as was January 1st, 2001, when all the numbers align. At ten past ten this morning it would have been even cooler. What are these days called? Why are they not floating festivals, or moments for mass carnivals to erupt, where all order is inverted, and mayhem rules? As luck would have it, I will be guest blogger over at The Best American Poetry blog this week, starting today. So don't expect to see so much of me over here, until next Sunday. Pip pip.
THAT HANDSOME MAN A PERSONAL BRIEF REVIEW BY TODD SWIFT I could lie and claim Larkin, Yeats , or Dylan Thomas most excited me as a young poet, or even Pound or FT Prince - but the truth be told, it was Thom Gunn I first and most loved when I was young. Precisely, I fell in love with his first two collections, written under a formalist, Elizabethan ( Fulke Greville mainly), Yvor Winters triad of influences - uniquely fused with an interest in homerotica, pop culture ( Brando, Elvis , motorcycles). His best poem 'On The Move' is oddly presented here without the quote that began it usually - Man, you gotta go - which I loved. Gunn was - and remains - so thrilling, to me at least, because so odd. His elegance, poise, and intelligence is all about display, about surface - but the surface of a panther, who ripples with strength beneath the skin. With Gunn, you dressed to have sex. Or so I thought. Because I was queer (I maintain the right to lay claim to that
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