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A review by onlyalookalike
The Man With Night Sweats by Thom Gunn
challenging
emotional
reflective
relaxing
sad
slow-paced
5.0
I was first introduced to Thom Gunn’s work via a Tumblr post. The lines from ‘In Time of Plague’—"My thoughts are crowded with death and it draws so oddly on the sexual that I am confused, confused to be attracted by, in fact, my own annihilation.”—interwoven between photos that held thematic relation. It was all beautiful to the eyes, but aestheticism wasn't in my realm of interest at that moment. Instead, I was breathless, in a—stare into space and feel the glorious devastation of being alive—kind of way. I was instantly taken by the poet's words. Switching tabs, I feverishly began scouring the internet for the source. When I read the full poem, it was as if someone had reached down into the messy, gory bits of my insides and put to paper what I had been too ashamed to even try to articulate. The only other poem to ever give me that feeling was ‘Let it Enfold You’ by Charles Bukowski.
Over the course of the following three months I slowly, painstakingly so, made my way through this collection. I wanted to savour every last morsel. As someone who had never really ‘got’ poetry, I knew I needed to submerge myself in the words. I went over each poem, again and again, studying the use of language, finding meaning between the lines, in what was said and unsaid. I formed my own meanings and then eagerly went to google to see what others had to say. I spoke the words aloud, found readings by the poet himself on youtube, and was continuously having ‘eureka’ moments of understanding. It was a labour of love, a rare delicacy, sometimes starting, sometimes ending, my day. I never wanted it to end.
To say the collection is sad would be an oversimplification. It is at times devastating in the case of pieces like ‘Lament’ but it is also vibrantly joyous as in ‘Patch Work’. Gunn does something I love and that is connecting the seemingly wide gulf between anguish and rapture. When posed beside one another, antithetic themes can be experienced at their most poignant and visceral. Alongside the grit and death, and greasy, animalistic desire there is also growth and renewal, and chaste, angelic wonder. Best of all both these things are presented as normal and at times good and bad and neither and both and that is what being a human entails. One of my favourite themes was hunger and consumption, the need to be full—of everything, and sometimes, at any cost. The hollowness which can accompany otherness breeds a profound craving. It is an overarching concept Thom Gunn plays with—living in queer exile—being pariah-ed by society and the bonds you long for. Companionship, living your life intertwined with others, is all the more gut-wrenching when you read the parting words these fellows share at death’s door. It is haunting and yet, has made me yearn all the more for that kind of intimacy.
Over the course of the following three months I slowly, painstakingly so, made my way through this collection. I wanted to savour every last morsel. As someone who had never really ‘got’ poetry, I knew I needed to submerge myself in the words. I went over each poem, again and again, studying the use of language, finding meaning between the lines, in what was said and unsaid. I formed my own meanings and then eagerly went to google to see what others had to say. I spoke the words aloud, found readings by the poet himself on youtube, and was continuously having ‘eureka’ moments of understanding. It was a labour of love, a rare delicacy, sometimes starting, sometimes ending, my day. I never wanted it to end.
To say the collection is sad would be an oversimplification. It is at times devastating in the case of pieces like ‘Lament’ but it is also vibrantly joyous as in ‘Patch Work’. Gunn does something I love and that is connecting the seemingly wide gulf between anguish and rapture. When posed beside one another, antithetic themes can be experienced at their most poignant and visceral. Alongside the grit and death, and greasy, animalistic desire there is also growth and renewal, and chaste, angelic wonder. Best of all both these things are presented as normal and at times good and bad and neither and both and that is what being a human entails. One of my favourite themes was hunger and consumption, the need to be full—of everything, and sometimes, at any cost. The hollowness which can accompany otherness breeds a profound craving. It is an overarching concept Thom Gunn plays with—living in queer exile—being pariah-ed by society and the bonds you long for. Companionship, living your life intertwined with others, is all the more gut-wrenching when you read the parting words these fellows share at death’s door. It is haunting and yet, has made me yearn all the more for that kind of intimacy.