Boss Cupid: Poems

by Thom Gunn

A great poet's freshest, most provocative book.

He dreams at the center of a closed system,
Like the prison system, or a system of love,
Where folktale, recipe, and household custom
Refer back to the maze that they are of.
--from "A System: PCP, or Angel Dust"

Taste and appetite are contraposed in Boss Cupid, the twelfth book of poems by the quintessential San Francisco poet, who is also the quintessential craftsman and quintessentially a love poet, though not of quintessential love.Variations on how we are ruled by our desires, these poems make a startling and 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 collection of Thom Gunn's is his richest yet.

Genres: Poetry, Queer, LGBT, British Literature, Gay

112 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2000

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 3 out of 5]

Deeply uneven final collection from Gunn - with a handful of late masterpieces. But it's legible how "spent" he felt by this point.

[Pewterbreath · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gunn is almost aggressively unfashionable---his use of language seems to come straight out of the seventies or before; but the subject matter (pre-AIDS gay life) comes from the seventies or before (in general) so it fits.
That being said--the poems are very much a mixed bag. I stated before that there's an elegaic feel to this set. Most of the poems have something to do with remembering, and much of this remembering is quite a ways in the past--an old man remembering what it was like to be a young one.

At his worst he becomes too much of a character---an elegizer from "Tales in the City." His questions are real--the intense life of freedom is over---why is it over--why did it end? He goes over the across the accounts of old lovers, not sad really, just melancholy. Even his happier memories seem to be covered over with a bit of a soft screen.

But then there's some humdingers in here---the Jeffrey Dahlmer cycle is the first thing that comes to my mind--his classical themes ("Arachne...ect") connect about half the time---either they are brilliant with an almost surreal twist, or they suffer again the soft-lens treatment--too melancholy, too sentimental, too treated like an object---just another absent thing from the past that is brought up to view. Sometimes it's like hearing Grandpa stories, where you know what he's talking about means something to him, but has no connection outside of personal.

If you like confessional poetry, you'll probably dig all the things I didn't. For me, confessionalism is kind of empty unless the writer hitches the soul-baring to something objective (otherwise it becomes a tedious narcissistic exercise). Thom Gunn tries---and narcissism certainly isn't anything I'd levy against him---it's just that I wish there was more center now and then, that's all.

[Wuttipol✨ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Painting by Vuilllard

Two dumpy women with buns were drinking coffee
In a narrow kitchen—at least I think a kitchen
And I think it was whitewashed, in spite of all the shade.
They were flat brown, they were as brown as coffee.
Wearing brown muslin? I really could not tell.
How I loved this painting, they had grown so old
That everything had got less complicated,
Brown clothes and shade in a sunken whitewashed kitchen.

But it’s not like that for me: age is not simpler
Or less enjoyable, not dark, not whitewashed.
The people sitting on the marble steps
Of the national gallery, people in the sunlight,
A party of handsome children eating lunch
And drinking chocolate milk, and a young woman
Whose t-shirt bears the defiant word WHATEVER,
And wrinkled folk with visored hats and cameras
Are vivid, they are not browned, not in the least,
But if they do not look like coffee they look
As pungent and startling as good strong coffee tastes,
Possibly mixed with chicory. And no cream.

[Anthony · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have a special place in my heart for Thom Gunn because I saw him give a reading the week he died. I'm assuming it was his last public reading but I haven't researched this. His last collection of poems is a lecherous and bitchy exploration of desire, from Greek mythology to Jeffrey Dahmer. It is not a complete success, but when the speaker of a poem sees a cute boy on a bicycle and says he wants to "creep into his armpit like a fly", I do get a little giddy.

[Ev · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poems of aging, desire, love, companionship, care-taking and humor. I'm on a journey, learning to read and write poetry, so I am excited to return to this collection with a more critical eye, to pick apart form and meter. There is also a certain excitement to starting with a writer's last work and working your way backward through time. Or jumping around.

Favorites: "A Home," "Enough," "Cat Island," "The Dump," "Painting by Vuillard," "Classics," "Hi," and "Coffee Shop."

"I seek a potent mix / of toughness and tenderness in men. / The paradigm / being the weeping wrestler."

[Jennifer Collins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Smart and raw, these poems are about desire in all its' forms, both admirable and frightening. Gunn was one of only a few contemporary poets who are comfortable writing in form, and that versatility shows here. Unlike much contemporary form poetry, though, these poems aren't burdened by restraint--instead, they seem to celebrate life, and love. While some of the poems require some knowledge of biblical lore or classical mythology for a full appreciation of the content, many of them are far more accessible in nature, focusing on scene and character instead of building from other stories. Throughout the poems, however, Gunn's quick rhythms and perfectly formed descriptions are worth reading and re-reading, particularly when his poems are focused in on single short scenes and the results and questions of desire, as is so often the case in this collection.

[Courtney LeBlanc · Rating 4 out of 5]

This style of poetry isn't for me - very plain spoken without much thought (so it seems) to word choice or poetics or trying to lead the reader anywhere deeper.

from The Artist as an Old Man: "Vulnerable because / naked because / his own model. // Muscled and veined, not / a bad old body / for an old man."

from Coffee on Cole: "On the outside / table and inside, they / sit drinking coffee. / Most are male, some / writing seriously / -- you can tell they are serious / from their hiking boots. / Clothes for the job. / The male job."

[Niño Manaog Saavedra · Rating 3 out of 5]

The gay kag all flesh.

[Melanie · Rating 1 out of 5]

This collection is the antithesis of what I love in poetry. It is gentle & measured without colour or lyricism.

[Jared · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.4/5