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casparb's review against another edition
This seems to be Al Alvarez's favourite Gunn, his debut, but as Red Comet will inform you, Al Alvarez was not always right. Bad news: it's less gay than Sad Captains. Nonetheless the talent Is here & one doesn't hide it so easily as that. This too has its rhyming thing & this time too I don't mind it I think he's a supple hand (gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar).
The opening of Carnal Knowledge:
Even in bed I pose: desire may grow
More circumstantial and less circumspect
Each night, but an acute girl would suspect
My thoughts might not be, like my body, bare.
I wonder if you know, or, knowing, care?
You know I know you know I know you know.
-It's obviously a very intricate poem this is Thom at some of his finest though it probably takes a couple reads for it to settle. I think it's best to approach this as a sonnet of the Metaphysicals there's something so Renaissance about it though maybe I'd go earlier and say Wyatt. Not sure what his training is there but it's that intricacy, the delicate, wrought lines and my gosh look at those caesurae
The opening of Carnal Knowledge:
Even in bed I pose: desire may grow
More circumstantial and less circumspect
Each night, but an acute girl would suspect
My thoughts might not be, like my body, bare.
I wonder if you know, or, knowing, care?
You know I know you know I know you know.
-It's obviously a very intricate poem this is Thom at some of his finest though it probably takes a couple reads for it to settle. I think it's best to approach this as a sonnet of the Metaphysicals there's something so Renaissance about it though maybe I'd go earlier and say Wyatt. Not sure what his training is there but it's that intricacy, the delicate, wrought lines and my gosh look at those caesurae
gooutside's review
5.0
I read each poem twice. Once quickly, just getting the emotions and the ideas down. The second time more thoroughly, attempting to understand each line, each stanza. His observations in relationships and love particularly resonated with me. To His Cynical Mistress reminded me of many relationships I have witnessed. I don't know much about Gunn, but my guess is that he was involved in WW2; Captain of Time and Peace showed the confusion soldiers have when coming home and back to civilian society.
His poetry is situated in the time he lived in then, but I still could identify with it- some 60 years later.
His poetry is situated in the time he lived in then, but I still could identify with it- some 60 years later.
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