Happy Canada Day. In both official languages, and half an hour later in Newfoundland. Also, today is the feast day of Saint Oliver Plunkett (I was married in a church named after him, in Blackrock). Also, welcome to the deep summertime - enjoy it while it lasts these next eight weeks or so. And, finally, take stock: this is the second half of the year - with autumn and December ahead now - and the first day of the rest of your life. Well, okay, that last part was a bit much, but it is tempting to take it one day at a time, especially in the slowing laziness of this hottest and most humid of months. As for Canada - it's doing well - it had a brash Olympics, has an economic model the Tories have stolen, and has a few good poets, some darn fine film directors, actors and comedians, and world-class prose writers. Go on, Hug Shatner today, have a beaver's tail. Even, for a moment, imagine moving to Ottawa, world's safest, calmest capital - imagine skating on its canal.
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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