Catholics are not as impressed by Bible-reading, but I grew up a Protestant, before converting, and am familiar with the King James Bible, along with Shakespeare, what you get when you are stranded on BBC's Desert Island. Today it has been acted out on Radio 4 (BBC), and has been impressive (if at times, even for a literate Christian poet, tedious). There is an urge to render the Bible a secular document of immense poetic value, which, secondarily, it has become, and Ecclesiastes, especially, reminds me how much of Roth's Nemesis is (literally) biblical. Without this great Judaeo-Christian work, as we all know (and are endlessly told), there could be no meaningful English literature, which, at any rate, only becomes mainly or mostly post-King James post-Beckett, and not even then. Good to have British radio opened up to the Word of God. At the least, it'll do wonders for a new generation of poets.
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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