Gunn, Thom 1995
I thought I was so tough,
But gentled at your hands,
Cannot be quick enough
To fly for you and show
That when I go I go
At your commands.
– Thom Gunn, “Tamer and Hawk”
Listen to Thom Gunn’s Poetry Center of Chicago reading:
Read an interview with Thom Gunn from the Paris Review:
The Art of Poetry No. 72
Thom Gunn 1960 Hampstead-White Stone Pond. Thom Gunn was born in Gravesend, on the southern bank of the Thames estuary, in 1929. His childhood was spent mostly in that county, Kent, and in the affluent suburb of Hampstead in northwest London. A relatively happy boyhood was overshadowed firs…
One by one they appear in
the darkness: a few friends, and
a few with historical
names. How late they start to shine!
– Thom Gunn, “My Sad Captains”
Listen to Thom Gunn read two of his poems:
Thom Gunn reads his poems “Jamesian” and “The Home”
“Listen to this poetry reading to hear the poet Thom Gunn read his poems “”Jamesian”” and “”The Home.”” Gunn (1929–2004) wrote poems about nature, friendship, literature, love, and death, set against the ever-changing backdrop of San Francisco-the druggy, politically charged sixties and the plague years of AIDS in the eighties.
