Kingston University is sponsoring the Oxfam reading series in Marylebone this autumn and winter. So far we have scheduled three excellent evenings, on September 29, November 18 and December 1, 2010, featuring, poets Charles Boyle, Jen Hadfield, John Glenday, Adam Foulds, Anthony Thwaite, Helen Oswald, Anna Smaill, Evan Jones, Michelle Boisseau, Dante Micheaux, Eric Ormsby, George Elliot Clarke, Carole Baldock, Barbara Smith, Sheila Hillier, and others. More details soon. You can always call or email Martin Penny if you want to reserve in advance.
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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