GUNN, THOM

born Aug. 29, 1929, Gravesend, Kent, Eng. original name Thomson William Gunn English poet whose verse is notable for its adroit, terse language. The son of a successful London journalist, Gunn attended University College School, London, and Trinity College, Cambridge, and received his degree in 1953. He studied and taught at Stanford University, in California, intermittently from 1954 to 1958. He taught at the University of California at Berkeley (195866) and lived in San Francisco while working as a writer. His first volume of verse was Fighting Terms (1954; rev. ed. 1962). The Sense of Movement (1957) won a Somerset Maugham Award, which he used for travel in Italy. On the Move, a celebration of black-jacketed motorcyclists from that volume, is one of his best-known poems. Selected Poems, which also contains the work of his Cambridge contemporary Ted Hughes, appeared in 1962. Positives (1966) is a group of poems about Londoners, with photographs by the poet's brother Ander Gunn. Touch followed in 1967, Poems, 19501966: A Selection appeared in 1969, Moly in 1971, and Jack Straw's Castle in 1976. Selected Poems 19501975 was published in 1979, and The Passages of Joy in 1982. The Occasion of Poetry (1982) is a collection of autobiographical and critical essays.