So many people die, it is often hard to keep track. Two lesser-known figures in popular culture were recently the subject of obituaries in The Guardian: Michael Gough and Mark Tulin. I met Gough once years ago after a play in London - he was very kind. I knew him best from Brideshead Revisited and, later, the Batman films. Mark Tulin was the bass player for the greatest American garage band of the 60s, The Electric Prunes, one of my favourite bands. They heavily influenced some of the music my brother later played, in Montreal, as a bass player in the 1990s. Both talented men will be missed.
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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