For those collectors of little magazines, poetry ephemera, and other curious anthologies, zines, and one-offs, there is something you need: Clinic Presents. I have rarely seen, if ever, such a beautifully-put-together collation of new daring poems by young (British) poets, and eccentric, indie photographs. It recalls the best of Matrix magazine, likely Canada's hippest alternative poetry-and-arts journal. With a Foreword by the excellent Jack Underwood (Faber New Poets 4), and poems by Gregory winners like Matthew Gregory, Sam Riviere, and Heather Phillipson, it also features poets I am glad to have read work by for the first time, like Rachael Allen, and Olly Todd. Check in.
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
Comments