News at Eleven: [Thom Gunn] wrote dream-vision poems,

where he imagined himself as a prisoner, a centaur, an explorer, the last man on Earth; he wrote, more often, clear poems about places and people, set in hospitals, on city streets, on airplanes ("Flying Above California") or in discos, portraying car mechanics, skateboarders, adoptive gay fathers, cautious, affectionate cats. We can find most of them in this spare selection: We can find, too, the tough, manly motorcyclists, "in gleaming jackets trophied with the dust," who reappear now and then throughout the career.

from The SanFrancisco Chronicle: 'Thom Gunn: Selected Poems'

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