Eyewear is getting some shut eye for a fortnight, in order to take a much needed post-Olympic break. See you end of August. I wish you grass. I wish you sun. I wish you sand. I wish you a hammock, and a cool breeze. I wish you some poetry books, or a charity shop thriller, or both. Maybe a G&T, or some lemonade. In the meantime, feel free to enjoy our unrivalled back catalogue of posts stretching back to 2005. Countless poems, reviews, and opinion pieces. I wish you love and health.
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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