THE LETTERS OF THOM GUNN

Letters reveal a poet’s depths.

Meticulously edited, introduced, and annotated by literary scholar Nott and poets Kleinzahler and Wilmer, this commodious selection vibrantly portrays the acclaimed British poet Gunn (1929-2004). In a comprehensive biographical overview, Nott observes that Gunn “was not just the leather-jacket-wearing, motorbike-riding tough that he is sometimes made out to be; nor the rambunctiously laughing, happy-go-lucky bon vivant that he often showed to the world,” but a tender friend and an artist of “literary and humane intelligence.” In letters to fellow poets, Gunn reflects on his writing process, the publication and reception of his work, his assessments of other poets, and, not least, his enthusiastic identity as a gay man, which he needed to conceal in his early poems. Although he once toyed with having heterosexual sex to satisfy his curiosity, he decided “that one must not enter on such things if one cannot be happy in them and make the girl happy. It is a pity,” he added wryly, “to be perverted.” He gushes about his love for Mike Kitay, whom he met at Cambridge in 1952, and raunchily extols sex. In 1954, at Stanford as a creative writing fellow, he was quickly enamored of California, where he settled. In the 1970s, LSD, cocaine, and speed became habitual, supplemented by alcohol, and AIDS made the 1980s a grievous decade of loss. In a letter to his lifelong friend neurologist Oliver Sacks, Gunn reveals the values he most cherished: “I found you so talented,” Gunn wrote of his early impression, “but so deficient in one quality—just the most important—call it humanity, or sympathy, or something like that. And, frankly, I despaired of your ever becoming a good writer, because I didn’t see how one could be taught such a quality.” A detailed chronology, glossary of names, and photographs round out the volume, which is sure to please any fan of literary biography.

A work of impressive scholarship.