Book description
The Passages of Joy, published in 1982, saw Thom Gunn writing at
the height of his powers. The poems combine personal directness with
an apparently effortless technical assurance.
Thom Gunn was born in Gravesend, Kent in 1929. After National Service
and a short time living in Paris, he enrolled at Trinity College,
Cambridge, where he read English. He published his first book of poems,
Fighting Terms, while he was still an undergraduate. In 1954 he moved to
San Francisco and held a one-year Fellowship at Stanford University. He
published over thirty books of poetry, including The Man with Night
Sweats, which won the Forward Prize for Poetry in 1992, and Boss Cupid
(2000). Thom Gunn died in 2004.
