Want to feel old? It is the 10th anniversary of Wikipedia - which, among other things, is proof of a poet's existence in the 21st century (don't believe me? - Google and see how many poets are listed there - know any to request the pages be taken down?). Meanwhile, The Simpsons first aired on this day in 1990 - 21 years ago. If proof was ever needed that zany, post-modern, and cutting edge American culture has long since gone so mainstream as to render the very idea of post-modern pop culture toothless, well, look no further than this show. I turn 45 this year (in April), and am now on the verge of (if not already tumbled over into) what is surely "middle age". I was 20 (that sublime age) 25 years ago - in other words, a quarter of a century ago, and no matter if I wear jeans, runners, and baseball caps, I cannot hold back time. We are no longer young - even those of us so embedded in, penetrated by, dazzled with, and intermediated via, new media and whizz-bang-savvy stuff. What's next? Surely not another 9 years of Bart and Homer?
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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