Fifty years since Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone. Fifty years since a book depository (had we ever used that term before?) ironically revealed the sword mightier than the pen. Fifty years since the man with the umbrella, the troops standing down, the epileptic fit, the magic bullet, the three hobos, the manhunt, the swearing in on the plane. Fifty years to create a new American myth - one never equalled - in terms of complexity, and paranoia. Fifty years since it became possible to imagine the mob, the FBI, and Castro in bed together. Fifty years since a few seconds of gunfire put a Texan in the White House. Fifty years since JFK became LBJ. In my home town, there are schools and streets named after JFK. My brother's initials are JFK (Jordan Fraser Knowlton) in honour of the fallen Irish Catholic president. What was his legacy? Publically, decorum, vigour, culture, a sense of Cold War hope. In private? Whoring, and ballot stuffing. Was JFK a great man? He was certainly the most charismatic US president - the best-dressed, the most openly visionary since the Depression. Arguably, Martin Luther King's death was more terrible, for the world, for America - but every assasination is dreadful. In fifty more years, it will all seem as remote as Lincoln's death. Historical, intriguing, but not, possibly, tangibly sad. But today, it is different. Across the world, anyone over the age of 55 likely has some recollection of one of the darkest most shocking days in US history. A day in Texas.
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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