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
POETRY, POLITICS, PROVOCATION AND POPULAR CULTURE SINCE 2005 - 19 YEARS AND over 7 million visits - British Library-archived
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As I get even more irrelevant, a belated happy birthday wish to you, Todd! You were born in the year of the horse. You have the same sign as the following personages: Michael Moore, Sarah Polley, Hu Jintao, Boris Yeltsin, and Ang Lee. I have been getting a bit obsessed with this matter of the Chinese Zodiac for the past couple of days, as you might gather from my website. Wikipedia has a good set of descriptions of Chinese astrology, as well.
Cheers, mate. I hope your is a wonderful year! I am happy to see that you are still achieving many many successes despite all the challenges, past, present, and future!