This is somewhat by-the by, but it interests me -- which is, that today I
was in a local college being a poet with some pre-GCSE kids. In the
morning I was telling them how I got interested in poetry, which was that
a student teacher when I was doing A-level in 1960-something showed us
Gunn's "On The Move", and the facts that (a) the student teacher was a
girl and beautiful and (b) the poem had motorbikes in it, which was a bit
of an eye-opener for all of us at the time, can be (partly) blamed for all
that's happened to me since. (I know this is a stupid statement, but .... )
Because the college is across the road from where I live, I popped home
for lunch and read that Gunn had died. Coincidence, or synchronicity, or
just meaningless.
A little while ago, I was with a group of people in a little poets' get
together and someone brought some Thom Gunn poems along for discussion and
nobody liked them. Even the person who brought them along wasn't very
keen.
But this is no time to say you're not very keen on someone's poems.
For "On The Move", which I haven't read for a long time but which, anyway,
it did what it did....
Thanks.
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