Thom Gunn is a very diverse and interesting poet. “The Man With Night Sweats” collection is a depressing and sad chronicling of the place Gunn was in his life during that time period. “A Blank” is a very interesting footnote to end on. Reading it while keeping the context of the collection in mind, it feels very deliberately placed as the ender. The poem definitely stands on it’s own (as poems should), but adding that context gives it more depth. There’s somberness to it but Gunn is ending the collection with a glimpse of hope, after some very dark materiel precedes. The poem opens with “the year of griefs being through”, an acknowledgement of the dark times Gunn had experiences and written about in the other parts of the collection. It definitely can be related to how it relates and contrasts to the others from “The man with Night Sweats”, but also do some of Gunn’s prior work. In “On the Move” the bikers are seeking something but lack purpose, in “From the Wave” the surfers have a settled purpose and are ingrained to it cyclically. In “Lament” the subject is a man seemingly being stripped of his purpose in physically painful ways. “A Blank” seems to give hope of a new purpose, or regaining of purpose. It seems its not entirely an expected purpose or hope, but one that Gunn’s speaker is intrigued and delighted by.I think Gunn wanted to display that there is a light at the end of the tunnel so to speak. I think he wanted some beat of hope to end on. He ended the collection very intentionally with this, but it’s not just a whim it feels as though he really did see some joy and hope despite what him and his friends had experienced personally.
I appreciate your connection of this poem to many of Gunn’s others through the idea of purpose and how Gunn has displayed it in his work. This wasn’t a connection I saw initially, but looking back now it makes perfect sense.