Thom Gunn, born in England in 1929, has lived in San Francisco since 1954. His work combines a respect for
traditional poetic forms with an interest in contemporary concerns -- the Hell's Angels, LSD, homosexuality. Gunn's masterful fusion of
both elements has garned him much critical praise. Writing in the Los Angeles Times Book Review, Donald Hall observed,
"if he belongs to a nation it is San Francisco; or perhaps homosexuality is his country -- but I do not find him pledging
allegiance to anything except his own alert, unforgiving, skeptical independence." Neither British nor American, Gunn
resolutely evades easy classification. Hall again: "His identity is his resistance to the limitations of identity. He
belongs to uncertainty, exploration, movement and ongoingness..."
Gunn has received many awards, most recently a Lila Acheson Wallace/Reader/s Digest fellowship and a MacArthur Fellowship.
His works include The Man with Night Sweats and Collected Poems.
Poem ~
Selected Bibliography
Photograph copyright Ander Gunn 1992
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