Thom Gunn — British Poet born on August 29, 1929, died on April 25, 2004

Thom Gunn, 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... (wikipedia)

As humans we look at things and think about what we've looked at. We treasure it in a kind of private art gallery.
There have been two popular subjects for poetry in the last few decades: the Vietnam War and AIDS, about both of which almost all of us have felt deeply.
I don't know how to sit outside myself and test against a hypothetical self who stayed home.
We control the content of our dreams.
I had assumed that I would age with all my friends growing old around me, dying off very gradually one by one. And here was a plague that cut them off so early.