Eyewear has predicted for weeks that this would be a difficult autumn in the UK, and now, unfortunately, the swine flu pandemic has been confirmed in the last few days. I have become rather tired by the stiff-upper-lip attitude of many of my British friends. They are being a little too stoical, I feel. Obviously, there is no need to panic, but neither does complacency seem in order. Latest figures suggest between 12 and 16 million Britons will get the swine flu this winter. Of those, between 25,000 and 30,000 are predicted to die. In a usual flu season, that number is more like 4,000 deaths. An almost 8-fold increase in mortality, especially one that will predominantly effect young people under the age of 60, is a pending tragedy, not a ho-hum situation. That many of the victims will be those with AIDS and underlying conditions alarms me, as I have close friends who are ill in such ways. Also, as a lecturer, I am concerned for my students, who always seem to have a flu or cold at the best of times. There is a blase Darwinism, or false sense of machismo, that steels a lot of the nerves responding to this coming medical disaster. But, as far as I can see, there is a chance, and not a slim one, that some of those we love will not survive the year, due to the first pandemic in 40 years. That puts elections for poetry positions in perspective.
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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