A terrible injustice has occurred in the UK. If it had happened in Russia or Iran, we'd be enraged and shocked. A woman has terminated her pregnancy (very late) by her own hand, and buried the dead foetus. The judge and law call this a baby, and have jailed her for 8 years. The judge is a Christian fanatic, as it turns out, opposed to abortion laws as they now stand. As a Catholic, I know what I am supposed to think, but as a rational and tolerant human I know what I believe - no man (or other person) can tell a woman what to do with her womb; Sarah Catt may have done something sad, unfortunate, even borderline troubling. Wrong, unethical - debatable. But criminal? No. This person is a political prisoner, imprisoned by a fanatical Christian patriarchy, and she should and must be freed. In a week that bristles with rage at MP's shouting at police officers, let us spare some sympathy for Ms. Catt, who has been slapped with the law's worst insult: contempt.
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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