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    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

    “Since his death in 2004, poetry on both sides of the Atlantic has missed Thom Gunn—his gusto, his candor, his tact, his persistent doubleness, his unfolding sympathies, his freedom from fixed ideas. This important collection of critical prose, a tribute, a reappraisal, and an extension of his life and work, returns Gunn to our attention in his living power. Poetry will be glad of it.”
    Langdon Hammer, Yale University

     

    At the Barriers
    On the Poetry of Thom Gunn

    Edited by Joshua Weiner

    Publication Date: July 15, 2009 Paper • 344 pages • $25.00 • £17.50
    UK Publication Date: August 10, 2009 ISBN: 978-0-226-89044-9


    Contributors: Eavan Boland, Alfred Corn, David Gewanter, Thom Gunn, August Kleinzahler, Wendy Lesser, Paul Muldoon, John Peck, Robert Pinsky, Neil Powell, Tom Sleigh, Brian Teare, Keith Tuma, Joshua Weiner, and Clive Wilmer.

    Maverick gay icon of poetry Thom Gunn (1929û2004) and his body of work have long dared the British and American poetry establishments to either claim or disavow him. To critics in the UK and United States alike, Gunn demonstrated that formal poetry could successfully include new speech rhythms and open forms. Along the way, Gunn’s verse captured the social upheavals of the 1960s, the existential possibilities of the late twentieth century, and the tumult of post-Stonewall gay culture.

    The first book-length collection of essays on this major poet, At the Barriers surveys Gunn’s career from his youth in 1930s Britain to his final years in California, bringing together some of the most important poet-critics from both sides of the Atlantic to assess his oeuvre. This landmark volume traces how Gunn, in both his life and his writings, pushed at boundaries of different kinds, be they geographic, sexual, or poetic—and how his influence has only grown since his death.

    Joshua Weiner is the author of two books of poetry, The World’s Room and From the Book of Giants, both published by the University of Chicago Press. A recipient of a Whiting Writers Award and the Rome Prize, he is associate professor of English at the University of Maryland, College Park. He lives in Washington D.C.

     

    Joshua Weiner is available for interviews. For more information, please contact Lindsay Dawson at (773) 702-1964 or ldawson@press.uchicago.edu

     

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