 | A WRITER'S WIT: |  L. Z. Hobson |
MY BOOK WORLD
Gunn, Thom. The Passages of Joy. London: Faber and Faber, 1982.
Sad to say I didn’t know who British-American poet Thom Gunn was until I read his recent biography by Michael Nott. Gunn’s life and poetry piqued my interest in that in spite of his seriousness as an artist, he totally buys into the druggie and sexual lifestyle of the nighttime. How can he do . . . or conquer . . . both? This is perhaps Gunn’s ninth collection of poems of a total of over twenty books.
The final poem of the collection, “Night Taxi,” may fulfill Gunn’s desire to portray this nocturnal lifestyle, with an opening line like “Open city / uncluttered as a map. / I drive through empty streets scoured by the winds / of midnight” (90). As a taxi driver, the persona continues: “I take short cuts, picking up / speed, from time to time / I switch on the dispatcher’s / litany of addresses . . .” (90). After having established this concrete beginning, Gunn shifts to a more philosophical tone: “Do I pass through the city / or does it pass through me? / I know I have to be loose, / like my light embrace of the wheel, / loose but in control / —though hour by hour I tighten / minutely in the routine, / smoking my palate to ash, / till the last hour of all / will be drudgery, nothing else” (91).
Glancing upward I see
high above the lamppost
but touched by its farthest light
a curtain of rain already blowing
against black eucalyptus tops (92).
The final stanza of this final poem establishes we are most likely in San Francisco, not London. The camphoraceous aroma choking the air, much like Gunn choked life. Or did life choke him? According to Wikipedia, “In April 2004, Gunn died of acute polysubstance abuse, including methamphetamine, at his home in the Haight Ashbury neighbourhood in San Francisco, where he had lived since 1960.” Sad to say this might have been the perfect death for him, and he’d always known, in some small part of his brain, that it would be.
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My Book World | Elizabeth Strout, Lucy by the Sea
Sad to say I didn’t know who British-American poet Thom Gunn was until I read his recent biography by Michael Nott. Gunn’s life and poetry piqued my interest in that in spite of his seriousness as an artist, he totally buys into the druggie and sexual lifestyle of the nighttime. How can he do . . . or conquer . . . both? This is perhaps Gunn’s ninth collection of poems of a total of over twenty books.
The final poem of the collection, “Night Taxi,” may fulfill Gunn’s desire to portray this nocturnal lifestyle, with an opening line like “Open city / uncluttered as a map. / I drive through empty streets scoured by the winds / of midnight” (90). As a taxi driver, the persona continues: “I take short cuts, picking up / speed, from time to time / I switch on the dispatcher’s / litany of addresses . . .” (90). After having established this concrete beginning, Gunn shifts to a more philosophical tone: “Do I pass through the city / or does it pass through me? / I know I have to be loose, / like my light embrace of the wheel, / loose but in control / —though hour by hour I tighten / minutely in the routine, / smoking my palate to ash, / till the last hour of all / will be drudgery, nothing else” (91).
Glancing upward I see
high above the lamppost
but touched by its farthest light
a curtain of rain already blowing
against black eucalyptus tops (92).
The final stanza of this final poem establishes we are most likely in San Francisco, not London. The camphoraceous aroma choking the air, much like Gunn choked life. Or did life choke him? According to Wikipedia, “In April 2004, Gunn died of acute polysubstance abuse, including methamphetamine, at his home in the Haight Ashbury neighbourhood in San Francisco, where he had lived since 1960.” Sad to say this might have been the perfect death for him, and he’d always known, in some small part of his brain, that it would be.
Up Next:
TUES: A Writer's Wit | Jean Anouilh
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Mercedes Lackey
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Dorothy Gilman
FRI: A Writer's Wit | Stephen McCauley
My Book World | Elizabeth Strout, Lucy by the Sea
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