The pulse of 20th century British poetry's durability - and sometime light, popular touch - can be taken today, as the death of the most famous tennis-playing woman in poetic history was announced: that of Miss J. Hunter Dunn, who, of course, inspired Poet Laureate John Betjeman to compose his most-beloved poem, "A Subaltern's Love Song". It might only be traditional verse, but it was musical, brilliantly witty, swooningly (if realistically) romantic, and oh-so gin-and-lime middle class. There may be "poetry wars", but somewhere there is also a Britain that needed such poems, and, thankfully, got them. Growing up, I loved this poem, and was moved, to hear it mentioned on the BBC this morning - and sad that Miss Hunter Dunn had died. As I've said before, the heart belongs in poetry, too - and sentiment - and a great challenge for the 21st century is to try to find ways to intelligently combine feeling, and complexity, in poetry, so that it neither stales, nor panders, while also communicating (if only sometimes) with readers, in the world.
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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good to know someone cared enough to script it (not the death of a poet, but the death of a muse) and to read the poem. She was, I think 92...