Touch

by Thom Gunn

Contains poem "Misanthropos," which critics have called Gunn's most ambitious poem.
*Originally a single short poem, Gunn realized it would have to extend into a long poem in order to fulfill his desire to express "a complete attitude to experience". The poem was initially titled "For the Survivor." Other titles Gunn considered were "In the City of Kites and Crows" and "From the Green Tower." Although Gunn began work on the poem while he was residing in San Francisco, he completed it while he was in London from mid-1964 until mid-1965. It was first published in the August 1965 issue of Encounter and subsequently appeared in Gunn's next collection of poems, Touch (1967).

Genres: Poetry

58 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1967

About the author

Thom Gunn (29 August 1929 – 25 April 2004), born Thomson William Gunn, was an Anglo-American poet who was praised for his early verses in England, where he was associated with The Movement, and his later poetry in America, even after moving toward a looser, free-verse style. After relocating from England to San Francisco, Gunn wrote about gay-related topics—particularly in his most famous work, The Man With Night Sweats in 1992—as well as drug use, sex, and his bohemian lifestyle. He won major literary awards.

Reviews

[Tracy Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

The title poem of this collection is a love poem, with a touch of darkness. When the poet lowers himself into bed next to his sleeping lover and cat, he goes through a gradual process of yielding his ‘chilly’ exterior, and falling into ‘a dark enclosing cocoon.’ There’s something menacing about Gunn’s choice of language in these poems, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Not that it mattered, I was too busy enjoying myself. Gunn is well known for his ease of form. Syllabic, sonnet or terza rima, he works his rhymes and pauses into natural speech patterns, so that I found myself delighting in a line break, an assonance. This collection has something to say about the subterranean meaning of things, about what drives sexuality, conflict, the creative process. His sequence, ‘Misanthropos’ begins apocalyptically with The Last Man, who has survived the ‘memory of a monstrous battle’ and ends, seemingly back in time, with The First Man, who reaches out to touch another who has been wounded. The effect of this reversal is pessimistic to say the least. Yet, it is true: as there was a first there must be a last. The ‘Touch’ that takes place is in the middle. Incidentally, I looked up 'misanthropos' in the dictionary and, apart from the obvious meaning of hate and distrust of mankind, found an interesting definition: ‘a person who displays characteristics reminiscent of the semi-legendary misanthrope Timons of Athens’ who went to live in a cave after discovering his friends were only using him for his money. I suggest Timons was misunderstood (some psychotherapy might have rid him of the need for external validation), and that there is a distinction to be drawn between healthy and unhealthy misanthropy. In poems like ‘The Produce District’ where an American shoots his gun (again) at pigeons in a rundown area of town, Gunn veered into the latter, and the sentiment lost me. However, overall, this is a fine work.