The 36+ Thom Gunn Quotes

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.

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.

I Was Much Influenced By Jean-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!

Many Of My Poems Are Not Sexual.

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.

I Haven't Written Anything In Four Years. I'm Sort Of Dried Up.

I Don't Think Of Sex As A Self-destructive Impulse.

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.

Ginsberg's Collected Poems Contains A Wonderful Poem About Making It With Neal Cassady.

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.

The Painter Saw What Was, An Alternate Candor And Secrecy Inside The Skin.