"Song"

""

" "for Thom Gunn

There is no east or west

in the wood you fear and seek,

stumbling past a gate of moss

and what you would not take.

And what you thought you had

(the Here that is no rest)

you make from it an aid

to form no east, no west.

No east. No west. No need

for given map or bell,

vehicle, screen, or speed.

Forget the house, forget the hill.

Taking its title from a set of writings found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, "From the Book of Giants" retunes the signal broadcast from these ancient fragments, transmitting a new sound in the shape of a Roman...

Maverick gay poetic icon Thom Gunn (1929 2004) and his body of work have long dared the British and American poetry establishmentseither toclaim or disavow him. To critics in the UK and US alike, Gunn demonstrated that formal poetry could successfully include new speech rhythms and open forms and that experimental styles could still maintain technical and intellectual rigor. Along the way, Gunn s verse captured the social upheavals of the 1960s, the existential possibilities of the late twentieth century, and the tumult of post-Stonewall gay culture.
The first book-length study of this...