Young Gunn does not overstep crucial boundaries in the 50s and 60s: there is no open declaration of his sexual identity in his verse. He has to calculate how far he can reach. Open declaration of his sexual orientation would have had serious consequences since male homosexuality was decriminalised only in 1967 in England, and in 1975 in California. In his essay on Robert Duncan, Gunn names certain tactics that gay poets employ so they can address their desires indirectly. I argue that censorship and thus, tactics may affect gay verse on both a textual and an imaginary level. Consequently, homosexuality can be part one of the forces that organise a text, and it is definitely part of the very fabric of the poem. In my thesis, I elaborate on the tactics that involve the subjects and the objects of young Gunn’s poetry. I discuss genre, poetics, the fatal split between private and public self, hero worship and self-subjection, as well as objectification and mastery.