Readers of Eyewear may cock an eyebrow at the title of this post - I am a struggling Catholic, after all. However, today seems a bleak day in human history - by no means the worst, but one of those that marks the ways in which human suffering is accidentally and intentionally visited upon people, often innocent. Exhibit A - the peaceful, decent and civilised city of Christchurch in New Zealand is shattered by an earthquake. Exhibit B - the brutality in Libya. Exhibit C - Iranian warships steaming into the Mediterranean for the first time in over 30 years. Surely, war of some kind is at hand, in the Middle East - chaos looms. Meanwhile, God, in his infinite wisdom, is apparently impassive as the horrors of history unfold. It is up to each of us (with our souls) to try to fathom the impossible, the infinite. Some days I am just, barely, able to glimpse the love of God working in the world. It is, still, visible, in the kindness and compassion and creativity of so many humans; but too often rubbed out by nature's wild cruelty, and humanity's own madness.
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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