Thom Gunn (August 29, 1929 - April 25, 2004) was a British poet. August 29 is the 241st day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (242nd in leap years), with 124 days remaining. ... 1929 was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... April 25 is the 115th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (116th in leap years). ... 2004 is a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

He was born Thomson William Gunn in Gravesend, Kent. In his youth, he attended University College School in Hampstead, London. Later, he read English literature at Trinity College, Cambridge, graduated in 1953, and published his first collection of verse, Fighting Terms, the following year. As a young British poet, his work was associated with The Movement. Also in 1954, he emigrated to the United States to teach writing at Stanford University and to remain close to his partner, Mike Kitay, whom he had met while at college. Gravesend is a town in North-West Kent, England, on the south bank of the Thames, opposite Tilbury in Essex. ... Kent is a county in England, south-east of London. ... University College School, known generally as UCS, is an independent boys school in north London. ... Full name The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity Motto Virtus vera nobilitas Virtue is the True Nobility Named after The Holy Trinity Previous names - Established 1546 Sister College Christ Church Master Sir Martin Rees Location Trinity Street Undergraduates 656 Graduates 380 Homepage Boatclub The Great Gate is the... The city of Cambridge is an old English university town and the regional centre of the county of Cambridgeshire. ... 1953 is a common year starting on Thursday. ... This article is about a specific literary movement - for other literary movements see Art movement The Movement was a term coined by J. D. Scott, literary editor of the Spectator, in 1954 to describe a group of writers including Kingsley Amis, Philip Larkin, Donald Alfred Davie, D.J. Enright, John... 1954 was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... For other meanings of Stanford, see Stanford (disambiguation). ...

In classic verse forms, like the terza rima of Dante, he explored modern anxieties: Terza rima is a rhyming verse stanza form that was first used by the Italian poet Dante Alighieri. ... Dante in a fresco series of famous men by Andrea del Castagno, ca. ...

"It is despair that nothing cannot be

Flares in the mind and leaves a smoky mark

Of dread.

Look upward. Neither firm nor free

Purposeless matter hovers in the dark." ("The Annihilation of Nothing")

During the 1960s and 1970s, his verse explored society's increasingly liberal views of drugs, homosexuality, and poetic form. Events and trends The 1960s was a turbulent decade of change around the world. ... Events and trends Although in the United States and in many other Western societies the 1970s are often seen as a period of transition between the turbulent 1960s and the more conservative 1980s and 1990s, many of the trends that are associated widely with the Sixties, from the Sexual Revolution...

He died in his sleep in San Francisco, where he had lived since 1960. This article is about the city in California. ... 1960 was a leap year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ...

External links

• Obituary of Thom Gunn (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/04/29/db2901.xml&sSheet=/portal/2004/04/29/ixportal.html) (Daily Telegraph)
• Obituary of Thom Gunn (http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2853293) (The Scotsman)