The Man With Night Sweats

by Thom Gunn, Colm Tóibín (Preface)

With an illuminating new preface by Colm Tóibín, here is Thom Gunn's extraordinary memorial to love, life and death in the time of the AIDS crisis.

The Man With Night Sweats, originally published in 1992, sees Thom Gunn writing at the height of his powers. The collection begins with poems that celebrate love and sex and bodies - whether the exuberance of a swimming otter, the nimble moves of a tow-headed skateboarder or the habituated coming together of two old lovers. In devastating contrast, the poems in the last section are unflinching portraits and accounts of the illness and deaths of friends during the AIDS epidemic. Written out of a lifetime's experience of perfecting his art, these poems are unsurpassed in elegiac intensity and among the most poignant responses to those terrible times.

Genres: Queer

104 pages, Paperback

Published July 18, 2024

About the author

Thom Gunn (29 August 1929 – 25 April 2004), born Thomson William Gunn, was an Anglo-American poet who was praised for his early verses in England, where he was associated with The Movement, and his later poetry in America, even after moving toward a looser, free-verse style. After relocating from England to San Francisco, Gunn wrote about gay-related topics—particularly in his most famous work, The Man With Night Sweats in 1992—as well as drug use, sex, and his bohemian lifestyle. He won major literary awards.

Reviews

[Harry McDonald · Rating 5 out of 5]

They're just staggering poems.

More here: https://harrymcdonald.substack.com/p/...