The Man with Night Sweats: Poems

By Thom Gunn

Book Overview

The Man with Night Sweats is a haunting depiction of a world ravaged by illness that is part elegy for those who have been lost and part evocation of the changes that await those who survive. It is also one of the few works of literature that have fully met both the aesthetic and the moral challenges that the AIDS epidemic poses. The nobility and sobriety of Thom Gunn's forms enhance and underscore the gravity and pathos of his subjects. The results have the cathartic and healing power of great art.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374530688
• ISBN13: 9780374530686
• Release Date: April 2007
• Publisher: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux-3pl
• Length: 112 Pages
• Weight: 0.34 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.7" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Gunn with Feeling!

Thom Gunn's "Night Sweats" is one of his finest books of poetry. He is a master at writing lines that are so rhythmatic and flowing. These poems deal with AIDS and also drug use. They are not easy to read, and very sad at times. But they deal with problems and subjects most of us have had to face in the last 20 years, whether we liked it or not. There is true feeling and honesty here. I especially enjoyed "In the Time of Plague" and "Memory Unsettled." I recommend this book as part of your permanent collection to be read again and again. Thom Gunn's poetry is the best.

Beautiful, sad, and moving poetry

Thom Gunn is a masterful poet, and this is a book full of beauty and pain. Many of the poems deal directly with AIDS, many (such as the title work) with heroin use. And yet they are not preachy, or sentimental. He is in firm control of difficult subject matter.Also pleasing is his use of rhythm and meter -- Gunn is one of apparently few modern poets who still writes powerfully within a given meter and rhyme scheme. Not light or easy reading, these poems are sad and sobering. Tears are advised but not required.