While I have been on sick leave, Jennifer Oey, Martin Penny and Etienne Gilfillan, have managed to put together a fine film and DVD, for Oxfam, featuring 35 young and youngish British poets, selected by myself earlier in the year. The DVD will be ready for purchase on Dececember 17, when it is being launched in London, at 91 Marylebone High Street, London, W1, at 7 pm. The DVD is called Asking A Shadow To Dance: 35 Young British Poets for Oxfam. It features a number of fine poets, including Luke Kennard, Lorraine Mariner, Emily Berry and Luke Wright. It was filmed at UEA and the Southbank Centre, and also at the Manhattan Review launch of last year. Well worth supporting, for a good cause; it will be ready for online purchase after the 17th.
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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