In Britain, a man is currently pleading manslaughter after strangling a woman he alleges screamed after he kissed her. This is a tragic crime. In Libya, the streets are gleeful with the death of a man, pulled, terrified and pleading, from a storm drain. Once a powerful tyrant, he was now weak, humbled. So they shot him in the head, pulled his body about, and cheered and jeered. Obama, and Cameron, have claimed this as a great day for that nation. Actually, it is a barbaric day. A tragedy. Each human death is terrible. Each life should be guarded, and nurtured. No one is too wicked to deserve a fair trial, or humane treatment. We deride the law in Iran that calls for cruel punishments that fit the crime, and yet applaud mob justice when it suits our ends. As in Iraq, this assassination has silenced an inconvenient maverick, who dared to challenge the hegemony of the oil-starved nations of the West. Is it good he is no longer in power? Yes. Is it wrong that he was taken dead, not alive? Also Yes.
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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