Boss Cupid: Poems (Google eBook)

Thom Gunn

Macmillan, Apr 1, 2007 - Poetry - 112 pages

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.

What people are saying

Review: Boss Cupid: Poems

User Review  - Melanie - Goodreads

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

Review: Boss Cupid: Poems

User Review  - Anthony - Goodreads

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 ...

Contents

• 2 GOSSIP: 49
• 3: 83
• Acknowledgements and Notes: 113

About the author

Thom Gunn, born in 1929, has received many awards, most recently a Lila Acheson Wallace/Reader's Digest Fellowship and a MacArthur Fellowship. His works include The Man with Night Sweats and Collected Poems.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Boss Cupid: Poems
• Author: Thom Gunn
• Publisher: Macmillan, 2007
• ISBN: 0374706050, 9780374706050
• Length: 112 pages
• Subjects: Poetry / American / General