BBC Radio 4 has just now been debating whether Raoul Moat is a worthy folk-hero - as Eyewear predicted might happen, a bandit hero cult has developed around the tragic man. It seems a bad idea to have Tasered a man with a shotgun to his head (the jolts caused can lead to involuntary spasms and hence pulling of a trigger) - or to have kept his family members away, when they wanted to tell him he was loved (he was bemoaning his lonely state). Meanwhile, the police office who he shot point blank has forgiven him, though he may now be blind. In another case of miscarried justice - and deranged men - Roman Polanski has been freed from his luxurious house arrest. This is a pity. Although a brilliant film director, he also seems to be something of a sexual predator. There is of course one law for dirt poor fugitives like Moat, and another law for suave rich abusers like Polanski. Will the director become a folk-hero too? Finally, speaking of violent men what was that with the Netherlands last night? A hockey game broke out on the pitch. Shameful. There should be red cards for poets online, to curb drunk-blogging and other high kicks.
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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