Several key art books of the last four of five years, such as by Richard Myer (MIT, 2013) have revolved around the question of contemporaneity, and what, precisely, it means, to be a contemporary artist. In the new global art world, the term "contemporary" has, to a serious extent, replaced the terms conceptual, or post-modern. It seems the poetry world (to label a thing which may not, yet, exist) has yet to embrace the label contemporary in quite the same way. Eyewear the blog will be asking, in 2014, just what contemporary poetry is, or was...
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
Comments