Gunn, Thom William

▪ 2005

      British-born American poet and critic (b. Aug. 29, 1929, Gravesend, Kent, Eng.—d. April 25, 2004, San Francisco, Calif.), presented a singular voice in a writing career that stretched from the undergraduate work Fighting Terms (1954) to Boss Cupid (2000). Though both his style and subject matter underwent considerable change over the course of his writing life, Gunn never lost his appreciation for the traditional poetic forms he early mastered and transformed with his modernity. After completing two years of military service, Gunn attended Trinity College, Cambridge (B.A., 1953). While there he met American Mike Kitay, who became his lifelong partner. Gunn moved to California in 1954, taught at Stanford University, and published his second volume of poetry, which included one of his best-known poems, “On the Move,” a celebration of the tough motorcycle culture. Gunn moved permanently to San Francisco in 1960 and became a part of the drugs-and-free-love culture prevalent there. He produced several volumes during the '60s—My Sad Captains (1961), Misanthropos (1965), Positives (1966, with photographs by his younger brother, Ander Gunn), and Touch (1967)—as well as editing a volume of Fulke Greville's poetry and sharing a volume, Selected Poems (1962), with future British poet laureate Ted Hughes. Gunn's evident pleasure in his life showed itself in his growing flexibility as a poet and his increasing openness about his lifestyle. Among his later volumes of poetry were Moly (1971), Jack Straw's Castle (1975), and The Man with Night Sweats (1992), an unflinching portrait of the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco. He also wrote two volumes of occasional essays and criticism, The Occasions of Poetry (1982) and Shelf Life (1993).

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