"When I first started to write, I was aware of being queer, but I didn't write about it. Queer poems would probably not have been accepted by the editors I sent them to."

Being, Editors, First, Poems

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"When I first started to write, I was aware of being queer, but I didn't write about it. Queer poems would probably not have been accepted by the editors I sent them to."

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Explore more quotes by Thom Gunn

"When I first started teaching at Berkeley in 1958, I could not announce that I was gay to anybody, though probably quite a few of my fellow teachers knew."

Childhood

"I think most men, heterosexual and homosexual, enjoy being considered sexual objects."

Man

"I haven't written anything in four years. I'm sort of dried up."

Writing

"I try not to observe myself in the process of composing a poem because I don't want to come up with a formula, which I would then be unscrupulous in using."

Writing

"We learned in the university to consider Wordsworth and Keats as Romantics. They were only a generation apart, but Wordsworth didn't even read Keats's book when he gave him a copy."

Writing

"I notice that students, particularly for gay students, it's too easy to write about my last trick or something. It's not very interesting to the reader."

Writing

"I admired what my students were writing, but I think their improvement doesn't directly result from me but from being in a class, being with each other."

Being

"Deep feeling doesn't make for good poetry. A way with language would be a bit of help."

Poetry

"I was reading the poems of Rochester. Rochester made himself out to be bisexual, but I think that was only to shock. Most of his poetry is sexual, even pornographic."

Reading

"I had assumed that I would age with all my friends growing old around me, dying off very gradually one by one. And here was a plague that cut them off so early."

Friendship