Reading August Kleinzahler’s selection of Thom Gunn’s poetry (in Faber’s ‘Poet-to-Poet’ series) I confessed I really struggled – not with the selection made, but with the source material. It wasn’t just that I felt the poems hadn’t travelled well across the years (the selection covers 1954-2000), nor perhaps any translation from California to the UK, but rather it was that I thought them flawed.
It seemed to me that the majority suffered from one of two issues (if not both): the first was a degree of shoe-horning unnecessary or inappropriate words into lines in order to maintain a rhyme. In places this led to a certain ‘clunkiness’, or an odd sequence of words, or the prosaic. The second issue – allied to the first, of course – was a consequent lack of rhythm, irrespective of the rhyme.
I wanted to like the work (indeed I always start out reading any book by wanting to like it), but I’m afraid in this case I remained at best lukewarm throughout.
I’m sure there will be Thom Gunn fans appalled by my assessment, who would have me burned at the stake. But there it is; demonstration – if demonstration was needed – of just how subjective this business is..!
Ian Gouge - Writer 