According to today's Guardian, Lord Byron was actually "overweight and unattractive". This seems like nonsense. The evidence is his weight. He is described as five eight (a handsome size at that time), and weighing in at 76 kg, described as "borderline obese". Not so. According to the NHS site which calculates such things, Byron's BMI would have been 25.48, or, very borderline overweight - not the same as obese, and close to a healthy weight. Byron may have had a slight paunch, but he was no Arbuckle. If he was in fact 13 stone (another figure mentioned) he would have been 29 on the BMI scale; 30 is obese - but this might have been with his heavy medical boots on. At 23, he weighed around 63 kg, which would have made him a very slim weight. This seems like a story without much weight to it.
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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