I work best in rhyme and meter. I was most confident of myself in that way. Thom Gunn More Quotes by Thom Gunn More Quotes From Thom Gunn I admired what my students were writing, but I think their improvement doesn't directly result from me but from being in a class, being with each other. Thom Gunn writing class thinking I deliberately decided to write a kind of guide to leather bars for straight people, for people not into leather, so that people could see what it was all about. Thom Gunn bars writing people I deliberately wrote a poem in my last book where I was suggesting that there are other passions as great as or more important than the passion of sex. Thom Gunn passion book sex I don't think of sex as a self-destructive impulse. Thom Gunn self sex thinking I haven't written anything in four years. I'm sort of dried up. Thom Gunn four havens years I think most men, heterosexual and homosexual, enjoy being considered sexual objects. Thom Gunn enjoy men thinking How sociable the garden was. Thom Gunn summer night children One joins the movement in a valueless world, Choosing it, till both hurler and the hurled, One moves as well, always toward, toward. Thom Gunn movement world moving Thus for each blunt-faced ignorant one The great grey rigid uniform combined Safety with virtue of the sun. Thus concepts linked like chainmail in the mind. Thom Gunn ignorant safety mind Direct me gods, whose changes are all holy, To where it flickers deep in grass, the moly. Thom Gunn flicker holy grass We tend to put poems into factions. And it restricts our reading. Thom Gunn factions reading We control the content of our dreams. Thom Gunn our-dreams dream Many of my poems are not sexual. Thom Gunn I was much influenced by Jean-Paul Sartre. Thom Gunn paul-sartre It was difficult being a teacher and out of the closet in the '50s. By the time I retired, the English department was proud of having a gay poet of a certain minor fame. It was a very satisfactory change! Thom Gunn gay proud teacher When I first started to write, I was aware of being queer, but I didn't write about it. Queer poems would probably not have been accepted by the editors I sent them to. Thom Gunn write about first being When I was an undergraduate I had very badly annotated editions of Shakespeare's sonnets, all of which left out the important fact that will has a sexual sense in Shakespeare's sonnets. Thom Gunn sense will left important
