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" We are no strangers at Esquire to the power and utility of poetry. But poetical artiness can get old pretty quick. Which may explain why Clive James&amp;#039;s poems seemingly stay fresh forever. They&amp;#039;re not artless \u2014 anything but: they&amp;#039;re as sophisticated as anything that&amp;#039;s been written in the last century \u2014 but they are notartsy. To put this another way, Yeats&amp;#039;s odes are lovely (see the second link above), whereas James&amp;#039;s are lusty, which makes them not only more fun but a lot truer.&amp;quot;Bring Me the Sweat of Gabriela Sabatini&amp;quot;: now that is a love poem.  So who is this guy? Well, Clive James, not all that well known in this country, is what is inevitably called a Towering Literary Figure in his adopted home country, England. (He is an Aussie by birth). Essayist, critic, poet, memoirist, commentator, general voice of reason and contempt, his talents and interests seem horizonless. Even narrowing the field to include only the Calliopean arts, he can write about word processors (&amp;quot;Windows Is Shutting Down&amp;quot;) and make it entertaining, and he can write about the pain of immigration (&amp;quot;Naomi from Namibia&amp;quot;) and drop a reference to Predator as naturally you or I might drop a comma. He can make you remember with pure Y- chromosome glee your greatest vengeful triumphs (&amp;quot;The Book of My Enemy Has Been Remaindered&amp;quot;). Then he can make you despise Donald Rumsfeld all over again. Then he can make you want to hug your kids while you still can. There is either magic at work here, or genius. But either way, it&amp;#039;s to be savored. Find Out Which Poets Made Our List of the 75 Greatest Women &amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;gt; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a7298/clive-james-poetry-041910/?src=rss>