Sad news. Sebastian Horsley, the Soho artist, drug addict, and blaspheming sex-writer, has died. Few people have attempted to live to its logical (or illogical) conclusions the alarming role of the decadent dandy - a fusion of Wilde, Crowley, and an opium-eater - with the discipline and sartorial charm of Horsley - a friend of a friend of mine (Louise Bak) and someone I met recently at the launch of Cosmo Landesman's book. His play had recently opened. A shame he closed his own book so soon.
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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Yes, it's a real shame particularly with Alexander McQueen dying earlier this year. We have too few genuine eccentrics as it is without losing the ones that we have. At least he will be remembered - unlike most of us!
Best wishes from Simon