Muni Art 2021 - Thom Gunn Poet Page

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The Night Piece

The fog drifts slowly down the hill
And as I mount gets thicker still,
Closes me in, makes me its own
Like bedclothes on the paving stone.

Here are the last few streets to climb,
Galleries, run through veins of time,
Almost familiar, where I creep 
Toward sleep like fog, through fog like sleep.

“The Night Piece” by Thom Gunn, from Collected Poems. Copyright © Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1994. Reprinted with the permission of the publisher.

Thom Gunn 

Headshot of Muni Art 2021 Poet Thom Gunn

Thom Gunn (1929-2004), British-born poet who resided in San Francisco for much of his life, published over thirty books of poetry and two collections of essays; he also edited four collections of poetry. His numerous honors include a Rockefeller Award, the W. H. Smith Award, the PEN (Los Angeles) Prize for Poetry, the Forward Prize, and fellowships from the Guggenheim and MacArthur foundations.

Artist Interpretations

Kundan Baidwan

Abstract consisting of lines of dots crossing each other here and there, arranged over what look like gray rocks topped with lime-green, some of it rising into the air, which is light gray like fog.

Agustina Caprioglio

Houses with trees towering over them surrounded by fog, with Twin Peaks and Sutro Tower in the background.

John Keating

Fog pouring in past Sutro Tower and sending fingers into the hills and neighborhoods of San Francisco.

Deirdre Weinberg

Legs draped in a robe and feet in open-toed slippers walk across a surface of small stones in varying sizes and brownish, yellowish and reddish colors.

Wes Wellner

A person looks out a window to the steep street where a man walks downhill, apparently unaware that behind him the fog is sweeping a trash receptable, a mailbox, a person, a car, a parking meter, a construction-sign A-frame and a window down the hill.