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A Reticent Eloquence: Colm Tóibín on the Poetry of Thom Gunn

Colm Tóibín· 30 septembre 2026

In August 1991, in a review of a new anthology of sixteenth-century poetry, Thom Gunn noted two poems by Sir Thomas Wyatt. These were poems that dealt directly with the execution of friends and associates of Wyatt’s, including Anne Boleyn.

Résumé

Gunn's poetic analysis

Thom Gunn, a poet born in 1929 and active until his death in 2004, examined the work of sixteenth-century poet Sir Thomas Wyatt in 1991.

Gunn highlighted Wyatt’s elegies—poems of mourning for friends executed alongside Anne Boleyn—emphasizing their emotional power and understated style.

Gunn noted how Wyatt’s lines, such as 'The axe is home, your heads be in the street,' use plain language to intensify horror, making executions feel like routine events.

Gunn’s focus on Wyatt’s control over complex emotions and precise diction reveals his own interest in the traditions of poetic lament.

This analysis reflects Gunn’s broader engagement with how poets manage grief through formal techniques, a theme that later appears in his own elegies.

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