Yesterday, British PM David Cameron stood in parliament and did a noble thing - took complete heed of the truth of a situation and morally spoke out, calling the Bloody Sunday massacre "unjustified and unjustifiable". This was a brave and correct step, and not entirely what one might have expected from a Tory; many in the military establishment, for instance, are being more ambiguous already. Meanwhile, speaking of military men, General Petraeus, in America, being grilled by none other than Senator McCain, fainted, when asked when troops would leave Afghanistan; in an instant of perhaps minor weakness, the unfortunate soldier may have disbarred himself from a presidential run in 2012. Some commentators think the report into Bloody Sunday signals the end of British imperial adventures, an end to an often shameful colonial past. Not quite. The guns are still abroad, in Afghanistan, for example. And the Queen - for good and ill - is still on the Canadian dollar. Vestiges maybe. But the sun has not yet set, just yet.
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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