Eyewear is very glad to celebrate Canada Day in London. Apparently, there will be hockey and rock and roll music in Trafalgar Square all day. Blue Rodeo, who I first saw at the McGill Ballroom a quarter-century ago, take the stage at half-nine tonight. Meanwhile, the young newly-wed Royals are in Canada itself - that brash young nation, filled with natural resources (not least of which are its rugged optimistic and fair-minded people). Storm clouds hover over the Rockies, though, and peril not even the Mounties can arrest lurks, in the news that the CBC mandate is up for review, and that venerable corporation, Canada's BBC, may be slashed ruthlessly by Conservatives, twirling their mustachios.
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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