Happy Easter! Today at Mass the priest reminded us of the classic song 'Staying Alive' - corny but apt. Easter, for Christians, is about renewal, and the promise of resurrection. I am personally assaying renewal, but still struggling with the idea of physical resurrection. I can better get my head around the spirit of the Easter message, while the fine print makes me unsure. Life and the world seems the place for love, and kindness, and tolerance, first. What comes after, if and when it does, seems less groundbreaking (pun alert). Still, the hope and promise of everlasting life is joyous. For now, I will take family meals, friendship, some apple juice, and sun, and the turn to May, as my slice of rebirth.
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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I am no Catholic as you know but I actually prefer this pope to the last one. He is very intelligent and an accomplished linguist - fluent in around half-a-dozen languages.
Best wishes from Simon