According to an article in today's Guardian, peak oil has been reached (in 2006), and from here on in industrial 21st century civilisation(s) is coasting downhill, at 7% a year, on a slippery slope to war for rarer and rarer, scarcer and scarcer resources. 2030 is either going to be very cold, or very warm - or both. Depending on which way the news blows, I'm never sure whether we're doomed, or about to have life prolonged for 200 years by Venter. Weird, science, indeed.
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
Comments