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! – Thom Gunn
My old teachers definition of poetry is an attempt to understand. – Thom Gunn
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
Do not shun this maxim because it is common-place. On the contrary, take the closest heed of what observant men, who would probably like to show originality, are yet constrained to repeat. Therein lies the marrow of the wisdom of the world. – Arthur Helps, “Chapter IV,” Companions of My Solitude, 1851