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70th out of 103 books
—
11 voters
Love Alone: Eighteen Elegies for Rog
by
Paul Monette
An eighteen-poem cycle on the death of his lover from AIDS emphasizes the power of love and its survival through pain and anger, and the tragedy and magnitude of a terrifying twist of fate and its effect on a generation.
Paperback, 65 pages
Published
November 15th 1988
by St. Martin's Griffin
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The people at Amazon who assign the categories call this book "Gay and Lesbian". No, it's "Human". Monette himself said, ". . .I would rather have this volume filed under AIDS than under Poetry, because if these words speak to anyone they are for those who are mad with loss, to let them know they are not alone."
I remember that I was driving into the city on the Kennedy Expressway when I heard on the news that Paul Monette had died. It was a shock, even knowing that it was coming, any day. Oddly...more
I remember that I was driving into the city on the Kennedy Expressway when I heard on the news that Paul Monette had died. It was a shock, even knowing that it was coming, any day. Oddly...more
When he died, Paul Monette left some amazing writing for us to experience. I would say this collection is the most exceptional of it all.
Read these poems. They are gorgeous. These eighteen vibrant, strong, rambling, monstrous, angry, thick pieces of poetry will bring to everyone who reads them a fuller understanding of grief, the hugeness of AIDS, and the power of one human being’s love for another. A fellow student in my creative writing class did a report on this collection of poems. Several p...more
Read these poems. They are gorgeous. These eighteen vibrant, strong, rambling, monstrous, angry, thick pieces of poetry will bring to everyone who reads them a fuller understanding of grief, the hugeness of AIDS, and the power of one human being’s love for another. A fellow student in my creative writing class did a report on this collection of poems. Several p...more
Terribly painful, wonderfully passionate, ultimately vital. Monette's visceral poetic outcry and memorial to his partner who died of AIDs (as later did Monette himself) lives on as one of the best works of gay literature. I wish all those who cast a yes vote on proposition 8 here in California would read this. It might unfreeze their hearts.
These poems are raw and real. Written directly after the loss of a loved one of a disease that slowly stripped the man he loved away and replaced him with only memories. I'm not a poetry reader but these are some of the most powerfully written words I've ever read. Anyone who's ever lost someone will find solice in these words.
Picked this up from the sharing shelf at my synagogue the other day and read it while waiting for the kids. I had read most of Monette's prose years ago. These poems - OMG. I started shaking. I am blown away. Extremely powerful, touching, painful and beautiful.
More brilliance from Paul Monette about the loss of his lover, Roger, to AIDS in the 1980's.
Beautiful, affecting, full of vitality. I wept.
Gorgeous. I cried and cried.
May 20, 2008
Andrea
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
people who like to tear their heart out and then stare at it in their hands
This collection is so painful to read. Every poem is literally full of pain, and there is no escape, no chance to breathe, either in the form or content of these poems. Monette's writing style reminds me just a tad of Ginsberg, and the pain of the book reminds me of Hall's "Without." Whew. I could use an anti-depressant right about now.
powerful and raw, all 18 poems were written in the 6 months after his lover died of AIDS-related complications (and while the author battled the disease himself), they are bare and striking in their passion, fear, loss and above all love.
This is a book that needs to exist. It's a sad comment on our society that it has been allowed to go out of print, along with too many other movies and books about the early days of AIDS.
Apr 24, 2013
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In novels, poetry, and a memoir, Paul Monette wrote about gay men striving to fashion personal identities and, later, coping with the loss of a lover to AIDS.
Monette was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, in 1945. He was educated at prestigious schools in New England: Phillips Andover Academy and Yale University, where he received his B.A. in 1967. He began his prolific writing career soon after gra...more
More about Paul Monette...
Monette was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, in 1945. He was educated at prestigious schools in New England: Phillips Andover Academy and Yale University, where he received his B.A. in 1967. He began his prolific writing career soon after gra...more
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