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Jensen Martin
Prof. Fearman
ENGL 211-01
11 February 2016
Critical Response to Lament by Thom Gunn
In How to Live. What to Do: The Poetics and Politics of AIDS, Deborah Landau
discusses how Thom Gunns poetry depicts illness and mourning in simple terms while
incorporating poetic language, focusing on Lament in particular. Knowing that Gunns work
was produced right in the middle of the AIDS epidemic, rather than reflecting upon the
physicality of the disease and the effects it had on those who lost loved ones as a result of it,
makes the poetry that much more meaningful and heart-wrenching. The thesis of Laundaus
piece is as follows: From beginning to end, Lament depicts death from AIDS as it is, without
consolation, transformation, or epiphany (200). This statement is central to this piece of literary
criticism because in no way is the illness romanticised, nor is the death of the poems subject.
The emotions that are expressed are raw and genuine, and nothing is sugar-coated.
Gunn describes the difficult enterprise of this mans death literally, without
euphemisms that could provide the reader with consolation. For instance, using lines such as
Unwhimpering, but not at peace with it and Meanwhile, / Your lungs collapsed does not
leave the reader or the subject of the poem with any sort of closure. It simply serves to add to the
general mood of tragedy and distress that the poet has set. Gunn is focusing on the body and the
physical aspect of death near the end of the poem, with the line near the end it let you down
for good in reference to the body of his loved one, after describing how the body had given him
all the life it possibly could before ultimately being consumed with sickness. The difficult,

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tedious, painful enterprise of the death of this person refers to the entire journey of living with
the looming presence of this illness, the elephant in the room, and of having to watch the person
he loves waste away and leave this corporeal realm as a result. Landau writes that Lament, as
well as other works of Gunns, could allow readers who have not had experience with AIDS
some insight into how such a serious illness can affect ones life: his poems allow readers no
escape, requiring them to witness the effects of AIDS unshielded and uncomforted (Landau
200). Nothing new is revealed in this poem, and there is not any change or epiphany described
within the lines. This work is an explicit description of an earth-shattering event as experienced
by the narrator.
Laundau writes that the description of the worsening symptoms typifies Gunns
poetic strategy throughout Lament, as fond memories are repeatedly undercut by an abrupt
return to the details of suffering (199-200). Gunn does not mince words in about how AIDS has
ravaged the body, especially with verses like In hope, courteous still, but tired and thin, / You
tried to stay the man that you had been, and Your cough grew thick and rich, its strength
increased. Descriptions such as these would affect any reader who could express empathy, even
those who could not exactly relate to such events. They are not particularly graphicat least, not
as graphic as they could be in this contextbut they still inflict a sense of discomfort on the
reader. Although the poem is largely chronological, there is a passage in which he reminisces
about better and happier times in the infancy of their relationship: I think back to the scented
summer night / We talked between our sleeping bags. Here, Laundau says Gunn cuts short this
oasis-like interlude with the line Now you are tired, launching a catalogue of further medical
complications (200). This points out more of the harsh reality Gunn meant to convey. Where
this flashback could have delved further into more pleasant recollections, the reader is suddenly

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brought right back into the fray, so to speak, of this incredibly emotional recounting of sickness
and death. It is a fond memory that the poet wished to include, but he did not want it to take
away from the overall purpose of the poem. It would not be consolation so much as an interlude,
or a distraction from this difficult enterprise. This is in keeping with the harsh and truthful
depiction of feeling the effects of AIDSnothing new is realised in regard to the meaning of life
or death or coping with hard times, and the veil remains un-lifted, as it were.
Laundaus criticism of Lament focuses mainly on the poets perception of this tragic
death, but in my opinion this is not the only important aspect of this piece of poetry. Gunn does
give the narrators perspective, but he also devotes a large chunk of it to how his partner must be
thinking and feeling about his early demise. The subject of the poem is rendered unable to speak
after being admitted to the hospital, but the narrator can still see that he is uncomfortable and not
yet ready to rest. The lines not yet tired enough / Still hungry for the great world you were
losing / Steadily and in no season of your choosing make this especially clear and also serve to
tie together the physical and emotional aspects of the death that the narrator is attempting to cope
with. Not only will he be losing someone he loves, but he will also be watching them expire
before they are ready to. Gunn goes on to write, Youd lived as if your time was infinite: / You
were not ready and not reconciled / Feeling as uncompleted as a child, as if to say that his
partner, although he had lived to adulthood, was still being taken far too soon, and it was almost
as though he were still an innocent child. He had not yet experienced everything he had hoped to,
and was not going to be able to lead the life he had envisioned for himself. This portion of the
poem, while it is not specifically from the narrators point of view, does not subtract from his
expression of grief. To me, it made such emotions more intense, because the empathy the
narrator is feeling for his partner in these lines is combined with his already powerful feelings of

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anguish. I took this particular section of the poem to heart because I have heard that this is a
common dilemma for the dying, and I also got the impression that Gunn might have shared that
same attitude toward death while writing the poem. This insight into the thoughts and feelings of
the other party is a vital part of this poem and how it impacts readers, whether they have
witnessed someone perishing as a result of AIDS-related complications or not. I have not been
exposed to such an experience in my life, and yet I could feel what the narrator was trying to
express.
At the close of the poem is the narrators description of how he felt after everything was
said and done, after his partner had finally succumbed to death. I observed that these words are
relatively simple compared to the preceding verses, but they are not any less powerful. The
closing lines in particular seem to be what the narrator wanted his partner to hear all along, since,
after all, he was at least mostly aware of what had happened prior to his own passing. These lines
appear to be more coherent, less the musings of a preoccupied mind and more of a reflection on
this traumatic event. Authors of poems and prose alike will write to fathom their thoughts, and it
is clear that the last stanza is an effort to cope with the mix of emotions that come with grief.
Gunn uses the lines:
Outdoors the next day, I was dizzy from a sense
Of being ejected with some violence
From vigil in a white and distant spot
Where I was numb, into this garden plot
Too warm, too close, and not enough like pain
to express how foreign it feels to the narrator to be back in the natural world when his world, his
partner, was cruelly ripped away from him. The narrator is still in that mourning stage, and to

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feel something pleasant, like the sun on his face in the garden, feels out of place and wrong in his
time of extreme emotional turmoil. Even more disorienting to the narrator is the absence of his
partner in the place where they lived together. This is expressed in the lines, The variations that
I live among / Where your long body too used to belong, meaning that the narrator doesnt see
the place in the same lightit feels like a different version of the space they shared simply
because one of them is no longer present. Laundau points out that Gunn withholds
consolation even in the poems last lines. A mediation on his lovers body that might have
inspired a redemptive erotic or spiritual vision leads instead into thoughts of how near the end it
let you down for good (200). These verses seemed to me to act as a sort of last-ditch effort
for the narrator to provide himself with closure, to come to terms with this death that he was not
prepared for despite the fact that he knew his partner was ill.
I interpreted Lament by Thom Gunn to be a heart-wrenching poem in which an AIDSrelated death is depicted in the simplest and gravest of terms, no holds barred, in keeping with
Deborah Landaus main point that Gunns poem does not provide any consolation, growth, or
epiphanies at all throughout. It is a tragically beautiful piece that offers an original perspective on
sickness, death, and mourning. Many steps in the journey of death are explored within, from the
physical expiration, to the anxiety experienced by the dying, to the grieving process of those left
behind. This literary work is truly one of a kind because of the use of eloquent poetic language in
what would appear to be a plain recounting of such a gruesome and upsetting death, a work that
would be especially revolutionary (not to mention alarming) at the time of its publication. It
stands out starkly from other elegies written to honour the memory of someone or something that
has been lost in the sense that the cause of death is not one that is commonly immortalised in

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verse, or not otherwise specified. This is one piece of literature about the controversial AIDS
crisis which possesses a significance that has stood the test of time.
Landau, Deborah. How to Live. What to Do: The Poetics and Politics of AIDS. American
Literature 68.1 (1996): 193225. Database.