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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

Thom Gunn is dead

penitentvandal

19:39 / 28.04.04

According to today's Indie, Thom Gunn died on April 27th.

This really, really depresses me.

And to make it worse, Hubert Selby Jr copped it today too.

And yet Jeffrey fucking Archer still walks the earth. Fuckery.

As you can see, I'm quite down about this.

If none of y'all have read Gunn, furnish yourself with a copy of his selected poems and start being amazed. The man was a genius, and the world (for me at least) seems like a smaller place without him.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

07:05 / 29.04.04

Ah shit.

10:48 / 29.04.04

Not good. I have memories of trying to read this poem aloud to a friend and not being able to finish as the final verse makes me tearful.

(Linked rather than pasted, in case you're not in the mood for emoting.)

Topper

12:17 / 29.04.04

whatever It is, that poem has it. a sad day, now that he's gone.

.

sine

12:37 / 29.04.04

You know, I recently met Lord Archer, and he was a great guy. Very warm, funny, quite bright. And, I hate to admit this almost, but I've actually enjoyed some his short stories...

Does apologetic praise for someone else constitute threadrot. Prolly, eh?

Alex's Grandma

18:28 / 29.04.04

Thom Gunn was a good guy, don't get me wrong, but I didn't know that Hubert Selby Jr had passed on. To be totally honest, I feel more choked up about the latter - For his Seventy or Eighty years, or whatever it was, Hubert Selby Jr was a fabulous genius who walked through the world like an angel who wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty, and if there's a heaven I'm assuming he's up there, and if not, fuck it, I don't wanna go there either.

So without wishing to sound like an utter poser, cheers Hubert, anyway. You did ok.

Loomis

19:34 / 29.04.04

Well I'm not one to get choked up over the death of someone I've never met (but then I'm a cold bastard). However I have always enjoyed Mr Gunn's poems, and it is indeed a shame that there won't be any more. Still, he left behind a good amount of quality work, and you can't say fairer than that, eh?

Alex's Grandma

20:30 / 29.04.04

No, you really can't.

Tryphena Absent

19:00 / 04.05.04

What do you say about something like this? I feel very sad, he was a good man and he wrote well.

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