I just completed watching all five seasons of The Wire, the American urban crime drama from HBO. You have likely heard of it, or seen it - it is a favourite among writers and poets, I've noticed. I won't rave here for long, except to say, I believe it to be the finest piece of television drama ever made, except for Brideshead Revisited (which was, after all, briefer and based on a classic novel). The complexity of the characterisation and multiple plots over many seasons, and the commitment to exploring socio-political issues is remarkable - but the ability to balance high-brow intelligence with street level accuracies, genre-busting ironies, pitch-perfect acting, and never-subsiding suspense, is unique. The Wire is a permanent masterwork, the Citizen Kane of the small screen. Utterly moving, enthralling, hilarious, upsetting, bleak, and yet curiously inspiring (there is always a bit of light in the darkness) I envy those who still have these many hours ahead of them. It is Good TV.
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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You are so right about "The Wire". I remember when it first came out, folks were skeptical of another "ghetto, drugs and violence" piece on American television. That attitude quickly changed after a few episodes. And I will echo Mark about "Generation Kill". Though different in storyline and characterizations, and lacking some of the sustained dramatic intensity of "The Wire", it is worth a watch.