PN Review - one of the great poetry magazines in the English language - has reached
its 200th number. Eyewear says hats off to them! In 1973 W.L. Webb noted their debut in the Guardian, in particular the magazine’s ‘elevated stroppiness
of tone and a sense of breaking new ground that I haven't come across for some
time'. They have survived a lot, including the Manchester bomb of 1996, and made marks along the way with, for example, PNR 13, Crisis for
Cranmer and King James which got them in trouble with the Commons. I found it a great resource for my PhD research on FT Prince, and other poets of the 1940s. While I don't always agree with the tone and tenor of all the critical judgements made in its pages, there is a serious, dignified and utterly committed approach to modern and contemporary poetry that remains unmatched elsewhere in the UK. The new milestone issue, PNR 200 is for July/August 2011. Like every PNR it includes an editorial, letters, news
and notes, reports, poems and translations, interviews, essays and reviews. It
introduces new poets and celebrates those already on their way. The complete
on-line archive is accessible at www.pnreview.co.uk. I can't wait to get my copy.
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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