Kirjahaku

A no-holds-barred biography of the great poet and sexual rebel, who could "give the dead a voice, make them sing" (Hilton Als, The New Yorker). Thom Gunn was not a confessional poet, and he withheld much, but inseparable from his rigorous, formal poetry was a ravenous, acute experience of life and death. Raised in Kent, England, and educated at Cambridge, Gunn found a home in San Francisco, where he documented the city's queerness, the hippie mentality (and drug use) of the sixties, and the tragedy and catastrophic impact of the AIDS crisis in the eighties and beyond. As Jeremy Lybarger wrote in The New Republic, the author of Moly and The Man with Night Sweats was "an agile poet who renovated tradition to accommodate the rude litter of modernity." Thom Gunn: A Cool Queer Life chronicles, for the first time, the largely undocumented life of this revolutionary poet. Michael Nott, a coeditor of The Letters of Thom Gunn, draws on letters, diaries, notebooks, interviews, and Gunn's poetry to create a portrait as vital as the man himself. Nott writes with insight and intimacy about the great sweep of Gunn's life: his traditional childhood in England; his mother's suicide; the mind-opening education he received at Cambridge, reading Shakespeare and John Donne; his decades in San Francisco and with his life partner, Mike Kitay; and his visceral experience of sex, drugs, and loss. Thom Gunn: A Cool Queer Life is a long-awaited, landmark study of one of England and America's most innovative poets.

Winner of the Hatchards & Biographers' Club First Biography Prize'With this meticulously researched biography, we don't so much move closer as move in with Gunn and shadow him through his life . . . Gunn's life is chronicled beautifully here.' Andrew McMillan, Literary Review'A consummately researched, intelligent and sympathetic biography - and, which matters most, he's a very good reader of the poems.' Sam Leith, Guardian'A fine, frank biography.' Peter Conrad, Observer'Admirably unsentimental . . . allowing all Gunn's complexities and contradictions to emerge unvarnished . . . the greatness of his poetry endures.' Daily Telegraph'The first biography of Thom Gunn, and likely the definitive one . . . Nott's book is one of the best versions of a gay relationship conducted over this half century.' Colm Toibin'Nott has set out here to produce a work sturdy enough to support decades of future commentary on Gunn. He's succeeded - this book is everything you ever wanted to know about Thom Gunn but had not even thought about asking.' New York Times Book ReviewThe eagerly awaited, no-holds-barred biography of the great poet: an intellectual maverick, sexual rebel and icon of queer literature.Thom Gunn: A Cool Queer Life is a landmark study of one of England's - and America's - most innovative and revolutionary poets. Michael Nott chronicles, for the first time, Gunn's largely undocumented life: his childhood in Kent and London, his mother's suicide, and his mind-opening education at Cambridge, where he read Shakespeare and John Donne, wrote his first book, Fighting Terms, and met the man who was to become his life partner - Mike Kitay.In his mid-twenties, Gunn followed Kitay to America and became one of the great poet-documenters of San Francisco's queer culture, capturing both the hippie mentality of the time and his own visceral experience of sex, drugs, and loss. Through the eighties and beyond, Gunn found himself in the midst of the AIDS crisis, recording its catastrophic impact in The Man with Night Sweats, poems that provide, too, its most poignant epitaph.Gunn was not a confessional poet, but inseparable from his rigorous formal poetry was a ravenous embracing of life and an acute awareness of death. Michael Nott, co-editor of The Letters of Thom Gunn, draws on letters, diaries, notebooks, interviews, and Gunn's poetry to bring us a vivid portrait of a great literary mind, sexual rebel and queer icon.

Winner of the Hatchards & Biographers' Club First Biography Prize'With this meticulously researched biography, we don't so much move closer as move in with Gunn and shadow him through his life . . . Gunn's life is chronicled beautifully here.' Andrew McMillan, Literary Review'A consummately researched, intelligent and sympathetic biography - and, which matters most, he's a very good reader of the poems.' Sam Leith, Guardian'A fine, frank biography.' Peter Conrad, Observer'Admirably unsentimental . . . allowing all Gunn's complexities and contradictions to emerge unvarnished . . . the greatness of his poetry endures.' Daily Telegraph'The first biography of Thom Gunn, and likely the definitive one . . . Nott's book is one of the best versions of a gay relationship conducted over this half century.' Colm Toibin'Nott has set out here to produce a work sturdy enough to support decades of future commentary on Gunn. He's succeeded - this book is everything you ever wanted to know about Thom Gunn but had not even thought about asking.' New York Times Book ReviewThe eagerly awaited, no-holds-barred biography of the great poet: an intellectual maverick, sexual rebel and icon of queer literature.Thom Gunn: A Cool Queer Life is a landmark study of one of England's - and America's - most innovative and revolutionary poets. Michael Nott chronicles, for the first time, Gunn's largely undocumented life: his childhood in Kent and London, his mother's suicide, and his mind-opening education at Cambridge, where he read Shakespeare and John Donne, wrote his first book, Fighting Terms, and met the man who was to become his life partner - Mike Kitay.In his mid-twenties, Gunn followed Kitay to America and became one of the great poet-documenters of San Francisco's queer culture, capturing both the hippie mentality of the time and his own visceral experience of sex, drugs, and loss. Through the eighties and beyond, Gunn found himself in the midst of the AIDS crisis, recording its catastrophic impact in The Man with Night Sweats, poems that provide, too, its most poignant epitaph.Gunn was not a confessional poet, but inseparable from his rigorous formal poetry was a ravenous embracing of life and an acute awareness of death. Michael Nott, co-editor of The Letters of Thom Gunn, draws on letters, diaries, notebooks, interviews, and Gunn's poetry to bring us a vivid portrait of a great literary mind, sexual rebel and queer icon.

A no-holds-barred biography of the great poet and sexual rebel, who could "give the dead a voice, make them sing" (Hilton Als, The New Yorker).Thom Gunn was not a confessional poet, and he withheld much, but inseparable from his rigorous, formal poetry was a ravenous, acute experience of life and death. Raised in Kent, England, and educated at Cambridge, Gunn found a home in San Francisco, where he documented the city's queerness, the hippie mentality (and drug use) of the sixties, and the tragedy and catastrophic impact of the AIDS crisis in the eighties and beyond. As Jeremy Lybarger wrote in The New Republic, the author of Moly and The Man with Night Sweats was "an agile poet who renovated tradition to accommodate the rude litter of modernity." Thom Gunn: A Cool Queer Life chronicles, for the first time, the largely undocumented life of this revolutionary poet. Michael Nott, an editor of The Letters of Thom Gunn, draws on letters, diaries, notebooks, interviews, and Gunn's poetry to create a portrait as vital as the man himself. Nott writes with insight and intimacy about the great sweep of Gunn's life: his traditional childhood in England; his mother's suicide; the mind-opening education he received at Cambridge, where he read Shakespeare and John Donne; his decades in San Francisco with his life partner, Mike Kitay; and his visceral experience of sex, drugs, and loss. Thom Gunn: A Cool Queer Life is a long-awaited landmark study of one ofEngland's and America's most innovative poets.

From amateur experiments in scrapbooks and stereographs to contemporary photobook collaborations between leading practitioners, poets and photographers have created an art form that continues to evolve and deserves critical exploration. Photopoetry 1845-2015: A Critical History represents the first account of this challenging and diverse body of work.Nott traces the development of photopoetic collaboration from its roots in 19th-century illustrative practices to the present day. Focusing on work from the UK and US, he examines how and why poets and photographers collaborate, and explores the currents of exchange and engagement between poems and photographs on the page. The book not only considers canonical figures, but brings to light forgotten practitioners whose work questioned and shaped the relationship between word and image.Photopoetry 1845-2015, a Critical History provides a new lens through which to explore poetry, photography, and the spaces between them.