Thom gunn biography

English poet

Thomson William "Thom" Gunn (29 August 1929 – 25 April 2004) was an English poet who was praised for his early verses in England, where he was associated with The Movement, and his later poetry in America, where he adopted a looser, free-verse style. Gunn wrote about his experience moving to San Francisco from England.^[1] He received numerous literary honors, and his best poems are reputed to possess a restrained elegance of philosophy.^[2]

Life and career

Gunn was born in Gravesend, Kent, England, the son of Bert Gunn. Both of his parents were journalists. They divorced when he was 10 years old. When he was a teenager his mother committed suicide. It was she who had sparked in him a love of reading, including an interest in the work of Christopher Marlowe, John Keats, John Milton, and Alfred, Lord Tennyson, along with several prose writers. In his youth, he attended University College School in Hampstead, London, then spent two ye