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Presents an interview with poet Thom Gunn. He was born in Gravesend, on the southern bank of the Thames estuary, in 1929. His early childhood was a happy one until his parents divorce when he was ten and his mother's suicide when he was 15. After his service in the war, he went to Trinity College in Cambridge to study English. There he attended F. R. Leavis' lectures and he had a profound effect on Gunn's early poetry. In Cambridge, he discovered his homosexuality and met his lifelong partner. "Fighting Terms" (1954) was his first book of poetry and many other books followed.

The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin and nine turbulent weeks in Arles Martin Gayford Fig Tree, 356pp, £18.99 In the early months of 1888, Vincent Van Gogh moved to the [...]

District and Circle Seamus Heaney Faber & Faber, 96pp, £12.99 Seamus Heaney is a poet of the four elements, particularly air and earth. Early in his career it was earth [...]

Without Title Geoffrey Hill Penguin, 82pp, [pounds sterling]9.99 The fault line in Geoffrey Hill's poetry has always fallen between conscience and self-regard. His early books, sparse and infrequent as they […]

The author comments on Edwin Muir's autobiography "The Story and the Fable." The autobiography was an attempt by Muir to characterise the two worlds of writers. For Muir, writers live the fable as small children and fall into the story as they become conscious of their distinct identities. The last lines of Muir's unfinished poem which was the final entry in his posthumous "Collected Poems" are provided.

Presents information on books by poet Donald Davie. "Ezra Pound: Poet As Sculptor"; "Purity of Diction in English Verse"; "Articulate Energy"; "Essex Poems."

Reviews the theatrical play "Romeo and Juliet," directed by Tim Carroll, performed by John Paul Connolly and Kananu Kirimi at the Shakespeare's Globe Theater in London, England.

The article focuses on the book "Metamorphoses" by Ovid which tell how god Pan pursued wood nymph Syrinx and mentions book "The English Elegy: Studies in the Genre From Spenser to Keats" by Peter M. Sacks and also mentions poet Thom Gunn and his response to AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. Topics include how Gunn made a declaration of symbolic independence, how Gunn recognized the contrasting feelings he had for his mother and father as classically Oedipal and how his mother committed suicide.

The poem "Industrial Village, Sheffield" by Clive Wilmer is presented. First Line: The wind came in my dream and blew away; Last Line: Dipped his frame-red steel in living water.

Presents the poem "Bottom's Dream," by Clive Wilmer. First Line: I was a weaver, and I wove; Last Line: And bottomless. Bottomless.

Discusses the influence of William Shakespeare's plays on various English poets. Information on the prose work "Shakespeare and the Goddess of Complete Being," by Poet Laureate Ted Hughes; Influence of the Shakespearean drama on the style of Geoffrey Hill's poetry; Comment of critic Colin Falck on the poem "Fighting Terms," by Thom Gunn.