One is always nearer by not keeping still. Thom Gunn More Quotes by Thom Gunn More Quotes From Thom Gunn A literary influence is never just a literary influence. It's also an influence in the way you see everything - in the way you feel your life. Thom Gunn influencefeelsway Deep feeling doesn't make for good poetry. A way with language would be a bit of help. Thom Gunn would-befeelingsway Much that is natural, to the will must yield. Thom Gunn yieldtakenmen I don't know how to sit outside myself and test against a hypothetical self who stayed home. Thom Gunn testsselfhome I had assumed that I would age with all my friends growing old around me, dying off very gradually one by one. And here was a plague that cut them off so early. Thom Gunn cuttingdyingage As humans we look at things and think about what we've looked at. We treasure it in a kind of private art gallery. Thom Gunn looksartthinking My old teacher's definition of poetry is an attempt to understand. Thom Gunn definitionspoetry-isteacher The painter saw what was, an alternate Thom Gunn secrecysawsskins As if hands were enough Thom Gunn avalanchesenoughhands We learned in the university to consider Wordsworth and Keats as Romantics. They were only a generation apart, but Wordsworth didn't even read Keats's book when he gave him a copy. Thom Gunn wordsworthgenerationsbook My thoughts are crowded with death and it draws so oddly on the sexual that I am confused to be attracted by, in effect, my own annihilation. Thom Gunn annihilationaidsconfused When I first started teaching at Berkeley in 1958, I could not announce that I was gay to anybody, though probably quite a few of my fellow teachers knew. Thom Gunn prideteachingteacher I try not to observe myself in the process of composing a poem because I don't want to come up with a formula, which I would then be unscrupulous in using. Thom Gunn cornywanttrying I was at a benefit for some imprisoned students in the '60s at San Francisco State, and there were lots of poets reading for the benefit: one was Elizabeth Bishop. Thom Gunn bishopssan-franciscoreading I was reading the poems of Rochester. Rochester made himself out to be bisexual, but I think that was only to shock. Most of his poetry is sexual, even pornographic. Thom Gunn bisexualreadingbook I'm not sure I had ever written a fan letter before to a poet I had not met, but that's what I did when I read two poems by Gregory Woods ... I admired them especially for their technical virtuosity, in that it was technique completely used, never for the sake of cleverness but as a component of feeling ... What an enviable talent Gregory Woods has Thom Gunn techniquefeelingstwo I work best in rhyme and meter. I was most confident of myself in that way. Thom Gunn meterrhymingway I notice that students, particularly for gay students, it's too easy to write about my last trick or something. It's not very interesting to the reader. Thom Gunn gaywritinginteresting There have been two popular subjects for poetry in the last few decades: the Vietnam War and AIDS, about both of which almost all of us have felt deeply. Thom Gunn hivwartwo Ginsberg's Collected Poems contains a wonderful poem about making it with Neal Cassady. Thom Gunn ginsbergwonderful
