With versatile literary allusions and metaphysical wit, [Thom Gunn's early poems] use the manners of the past to cope with modern situations. In this they remain true to the spirit of postwar Britain, open to new ideas while bound by archaic rituals. "The Wound" is about a trauma whose cure involves frequent changes of identity, and this contemporary subject is defiantly set on the Trojan battlefield of Troilus and Cressida. "The Beach Head" rehearses the play of love as a mock-heroic war game with Shakespearian (Marlowe Society) bravado…. Here are many of his themes: the cult of male energy, the self-destructive lure of danger, the lack of a positive sense of direction, the need to pose as another person, the separateness of lovers. There is also the delight in style for its own sake….

In Gunn's poetry a metaphysical game of ideas and feelings is played with words...