Exciting news. Eyewear Publishing's significant new prize - £1000 for best debut collection by an English-language poet born in or since 1980 (from anywhere in the world) - is to be judged in 2012 by British poet and editor Tim Dooley. Tim Dooley is reviews and features editor of Poetry London. He has reviewed poetry for the TLS and worked as a creative writing tutor for Arvon, Writer's Inc. and The Poetry School. He was twice won the Poetry Business pamphlet competition, and Tenderness (2004) was a Poetry Book Society choice. His 2008 collection for Salt, Keeping Time, was PBS recommendation. Imagined Rooms (Salt, 2010) came out to much acclaim. Eyewear is very pleased to be associated with Tim Dooley as judge for this competition - his measured approach to differing poetic modes, integrity of vision, and evident poetic talent make him an ideal scout for the very best of new writing. There is no entrance fee for the Melita Hume Prize. Deadline is submission postmarked May 1. Short-list to be announced June 1. Winner announced no later than September 1, 2012.
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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