SOURCE: "Thom Gunn," in PN Review, Vol. 16, No. 2, 1989, pp. 42-3.

In the following essay, Pinsky explores the theme of home in Gunn's verse

I am writing without any books at hand by Thom Gunn or anyone else, a few days before a complicated move—from the East Coast back to California, then back to Massachusetts—feeling distinctly not at home. Since Gunn, whom I admire immensely, has a special relation to the idea of being at home, I will take that as the theme for these paragraphs.

There is a poise in Gunn's poetry, a confidence without much swagger, that is like the bearing of a creature at home in its surroundings. Yet in the way that Elizabeth Bishop cast herself as a traveler in the world—nearly anonymous, focused on sensation, a temporary presence—Gunn sometimes conveys the reserve and intimacy of a visitor, a mingled privacy...