Boss Cupid: Poems [Hardcover]

Thom Gunn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 15, 2000

A Great Poet's Freshest, Most Provocative Book

Cadets and skinheads, city boys, young Spartans
Wait poised like ballet-dancers in the wings
To join the balance of the corps in dances
Passion has planned. They that have power, or seem to,
They that have power to hurt, they are the constructs
Of their own longing, born on the edge of sleep,
Imperfectly understood.
--from "A Wood near Athens"

This is the twelfth book of poems--the first since The Man with Night Sweats--by the quintessential San Francisco poet, who is also the quintessential contemporary formalist and quintessentially a love poet, though not of quintessential love.
These poems--essentially variations on how we are ruled by our desires--make a startlingly eloquent gloss on wanton want, moving freely from the story of King David and Bathsheba to Arthur Rimbaud's diet to the tastes of Jeffrey Dahmer. As warm and intelligent as it is ribald and cunning, this new collection of Thom Gunn's is his richest yet.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Gunn, who grew up in England in the '30s and '40s, and has long resided in San Francisco, remains deservedly famous for his poetic chronicles of gay male lust, love, grief and urban life, and for his masterful, unshowy, reader-friendly poems in traditional forms. In his first collection since 1993's lauded The Man with Night Sweats, Gunn treats his readers to lovely stanzaic lyric, amiable Ben Jonson-style epistles, cogent blank-verse essays and taut quatrains; he offers up, too, great descriptions of aging hustlers, versatile bartenders, cool kids, elective affinities and enduring affections, many in a muscular, terse free verse. His interests in disinterested judgment, on sociability and friendship, reappear along with his interest in sex. To his poems about people and places, Gunn adds a brace of short takes on Greek and Biblical stories and legends: Arachne, Arethusa, the loves and lovers of King David. (A brief set of poems in the person of gay serial killer, cannibal and necrophiliac Jeffrey Dahmer are overwhelmed by their subject.) The loose sequence "Gossip"--about a third of the book--consists of quick, memorable, short-lined free-verse portraits: "Frank O'Hara's last lover," the survivor of a brutal "Los Angeles childhood," a Berkeley student "fueled/ on wit and risk/ and Ecstasy." Standalone short poems include a dignified and forceful ode about stained-glass windows and a capsule biography of a man "Raised, he said, not at home but in a Home." While all these ought to satisfy both neophytes and longtime Gunn fans, the latter may be most strongly affected by Gunn's pair of poems on his mother's suicide, a subject on which he has not before published verse: "I am made by her," one poem ends, "and undone." (Apr.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"...naturally composed of temperament, diction, attitude, experience, observation - life itself." -- Rachel Hadas, The Yale Review

"An exceptional and fascinating poet with a formal range to rival Auden's...a sensuality equal to Ginsberg's." -- Glyn Maxwell, The Times Literary Supplement

"[Gunn's] Collected Poems are sane, accessible, impressive in their versification and command of language - testaments to intelligence, warmth, and integrity." -- Richard Tillinghast, The New York Times Book Review

"[Gunn's] adventuresome as he grows older . . . Sometimes the poems are so emotionally bald and direct that they are deeply disturbing." -- August Kleinzahler, The Threepenny Review

Alternate titles for Thom Gunn's new collection, his 12th: Boss Age, Boss Loss, Still Horny After All These Years. For if Cupid rules these pages, he does so jointly with Father Time. -- The New York Times Book Review, William Deresiewicz

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 128 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 1st edition (April 15, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374115575
• ISBN-13: 978-0374115579
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,134,780 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An aging poet becomes stronger and finer!, April 12, 2000

By 

"annclpoet" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Boss Cupid: Poems (Hardcover)

I think this new book shows Thom Gunn at his greatest as a poet. Many people who became fans of Gunn's work (very understandably)because of his last collection of poems, The Man with Night Sweats, probably won't be quite sure what to do with this material. But it's very characteristic of him, really! Both in style and in subject matter. Experimental yet classical, freewheeling but sane--the book's entire premise is the triumph of love in all matter of circumstances. And those readers who positively reviewed Gunn's Collected Poems, will recognize that the master has taken all of his knowledge of poetic forms (quite considerable) and his life experience (ditto) ahead, in a way that makes his true fans want to follow his every move; it's a virtuosic performance. "To Cupid" ("You make desire seems easy./ So it is:/ Your service perfect freedom to enjoy/ Fresh limitations.") isn't just one of the best poems Gunn has ever written, it's one of the best poems ANYBODY has ever written. It incorporates the motif of The Charterhouse of Parma, by Stendhal, who is certainly one of Gunn's most obvious literary fathers. As is Baudelaire: whose richness of romantic diction and sentiment is echoed in the poem, and others. Like F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gunn may be be reprimanded in some quarters for not becoming a clever and ironic realist. But that's not what we want from either one of them; they're more likable, and perhaps wiser, than that. With "Duncan"--a poem dedicated to his late friend, the excellent American poet Robert Duncan, Gunn proves once again both his own need for truthfulness, and his appreciation of the habits and affections of others. (H.D., a poet Gunn formerly trashed--I think, unfairly--in an essay on women poets makes a startling guest appearance in the poem.) "A Home" is one of the most heartbreaking poems Gunn has ever written; it's marvellous. ("Raised, he said, not at home but in a Home...Between the boys/ Contact, not loose, not free, consisting mainly/ In the wrestling down of slave by slave. Call this/ The economy of bruises: threats of worse/ Pin you in place, for more convenient handling./ And nothing occurs casually but dirt.") The "Troubadour" cycle, which is subtitled "songs for Jeffrey Dahmer," is bound to turn many heads, or even disgust listeners. But I think the poems are well done (especially the first and second to last) and Gunn is trying to be honest here too: to admit what happens when one's desire becomes too strong, and you cannot let go of the beloved--in tragic and comic proportions. Also highly noteworthy are the connected poems "In The Post Office" and "Postscript: The Panel" which are, I believe, about the same Charlie Hinkle who is honored, as a victim of AIDS and as a poet, in Gunn's famous last volume. I like these two poems even better than the really exceptional former work. I feel the subject is brought more to life; we can almost see and touch him as the remarkable person he must have been. And that was his dying request, if I understand it right. I won't ever forget the lines: "I hadn't felt it roused, to tell the truth,/ In several years, that old man's greed for youth,/ Like Pelias's that boiled him to a soup,/ Not since I'd had the sense to cover up/ My own particular seething can of worms,/ And settle for a friendship on your terms." Or, "If only I could do whatever he did,/ With him or as a part of him, if I/ Could creep into his armpit like a fly,/ Or like a crab cling to his golden crotch,/ Instead of having to stand back and watch." And especially: "I thought that we had shared you more or less,/ As if we shared what no one might possess,/ Since in a net we sought to hold the wind." I haven't yet mentioned Gunn's religious poetry--which was a surprise to me! A pleasant one. Since he brings all of his intelligence and passionate feeling to bear on that subject as well. And it turns out to be not very far away from the rest of the book, what he's telling us, in the "Dancing David" poems, most of all. I also love "Arethusa Raped" (after Shelley), "Famous Friends" and "The little cousin dashed in" and "Save the word"--all featured in the wonderful middle section of the collection, entitled GOSSIP. "In Trust" and "A Wood near Athens" are absolutely superb. Will Boss Cupid receive as much praise and notoriety as Ted Hughes' last collection Birthday Letters and Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf? Well, it should. Gunn has done truly exceptional and lasting work, and he deserves the credit for it. I think he's the greatest living poet in the world and he's never been better than this. That's something to feel grateful for, at least.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not a Poet!, June 13, 2000

By 

Joseph J. Hanssen "Joe" (Upstate New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Boss Cupid: Poems (Hardcover)

I'm not a poet, I just enjoy and love reading poetry. Thiswas my first time reading Thom Gunn's poetry, and I was reallyimpressed by his new book of poetry, "Boss Cupid." This is also the first book of poetry I have read right through to the end in one setting, and then re-read most of them again. That's how much I enjoyed Mr. Gunn's poems.

The book is divided into 3 sections of different subject matter. I enjoyed the second section, "Gossip" the most. There are a lot of poems about nights in bars, poems about bartenders, lovers, and other gay friends, and experiences. The poem, "Letters from Manhattan" is an interesting poem about his friend and that friends sexual affairs with young men in outdoor settings in Manhattan. In "American Boy" he talks about hating older men who bothered him when he was young, but now that his is old himself, he's attracted to younger men, and their love sustains him and gives him enlightenment in his old age. And then there are many other poems covering a wide range of subjects from King David to Jeffrey Dahmer.

If you enjoy poetry that's intelligent, easy to read and understand, and full of gay experiences you can relate to, and other life experiences, you will truly enjoy this book. Now that I am a fan of Thom Gunn, I can't wait to read his "Collected Poems" (1994) edition. This book is highly recommended. END

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars ...And taste your boyish glow., July 6, 2000

By 

M. Mitchel "m3warlord" (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Boss Cupid: Poems (Hardcover)

I consider myself completely unqualified to "review" poetry, but I must say I find Gunn's work wholly satisfying and moving. I read poetry rarely -- dabbling self-indulgently in a bit of Anne Sexton when I'm feeling blue and morbid -- but I purchased "The Man With the Nightsweats" on it's paperback release and have kept it near to hand since. When "Boss Cupid" was published, a friend presented me with the book and I devoured it. It's been nearly two months now, and not a day has gone by that I haven't revisited the book, either by physically reading or musing on its charms. Long live Thom Gunn.