Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino was born in Greenwich Village, New York, and was raised in both the city and in the country across the Hudson river in New Jersey. He was educated at home, eventually to enter Fordham University where he received a degree in philosophy. Today he lives in Brooklyn Heights, New York, where he edits the online journal, eratio, and works as a private docent. An interview appears online at Here Comes Everybody.
GREGORY'S INFLUENCES:
1. My influences, my affinities, I have found in trobar clus, in cubism, in minimalism, imagism, grammaticism (my term for the interior form of logoclasody), the mediaeval grammarians, the entire articulatory movement (the expressibility, the emerging-in-language) that is logoclasody.
2. There was always Emily Dickinson and Cummings and these were my best friends and constant companions. This was not by design, rather the books were there, among others, to be discovered. To this day, when I read books on this poetry, regardless of the angle of the writer, there is a relationship and a knowledge of the poetry (a sort of gnosis) that has grown inside me that cannot be removed or replaced. When I discovered Robert Graves’ ‘White Goddess’ I realized that I was a muse poet all along, and what it means to be in love with a muse. I also realized what it means to say poetry begins in emotion, that the emotion is not in the content of the verse but in the sensibilities of the poet, and that this was what was meant by inspiration! When I was a teen-ager I fell in love with Sylvia Plath—with her eye, her ear, her diction (where diction is to the painter’s palette). As for actual poets, as distinct from theories, these are my major grabs.
GREGORY'S TOP 5:
THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Click image to visit the Hamlet Online website; for the Mr Shakespeare and the Internet resource site, click here or for related items on Amazon, click here.
COLIN WILSON
Click image to visit the Colin Wilson Page; for Lynn Barber's 2004 interview with Wilson on the Guardian Unlimited website, click here or for related books on Amazon, click hereHAMMER FILMS
Click image to visit the official Hammer Films website; to read about Hammer on the House of Horrors website, click here or for related items on Amazon, click here.
THE POETRY OF ALAN HALSEY
Click image to read about Halsey on the West House Books website; for a bibliography of Halsey on the University of Southampton website, click here or for related books on Amazon, click here
Looks kill.
And I know, ’cause I’ve been killed a thousand times.
Looks kill.
The knowing look.
You’ve figured me out, but why must you kill me?
Here’s a look.
It says, I’m not looking at you, I’m looking at the money, or,
I’m looking at the menu, or, I’m not looking at you,
I’m looking right at you.
Looks kill.
And I’ve stopped counting.
And not because I’ve gotten used to it.
I have a new way of looking.
I’m looking into your eyes. From now on it’s gonna be you and me,
one on one, every situation.
Looks kill.
Looks are armor. And looks are naked.
Looks are telling and can’t take back.
I have a secret look, a welcome look, reserved for lips.
It says, words are irrelevant, and looks are enough.
My secret look is not for everyone.
It says, let’s heal, together, one on one.
It says, I can raise the dead.
And I know ’cause I’ve come back a thousand times.
The verbena thinned
into separate purple clusters
She lay near that renascent sea
with air clear and cupidless dolphin
balancing fear anticipation her heart
swollen with apparent exuberance
That barnacled crust
and then that silver plush
Her head pitched at zenith
she begged the copious twinkle
into winks of falling tear
asunder they sank
Now aquatic almost mirthful
she bore past seashells
and torn parasols
An antique dew does moisten where
Mab’s print of thumb she lay
Her press to fore does rend the hair
Does graze the part away
Does linger mingled with her scent
Awakens thought of her
In mem’ry’s whisper co-intent
Where all her site’s a blur
On firmament does Mab recline
Above the rustic head
To cry her dew the taste a wine
As we spin lost in bed
To claim thee Mab I do persist
Come graze this brow if you exist
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
COLIN WILSON
