My thoughts are crowded with death and it draws so oddly on the sexual that I am confused to be attracted by, in effect, my own annihilation. – Thom Gunn
It was difficult being a teacher and out of the closet in the 50s. By the time I retired, the English department was proud of having a gay poet of a certain minor fame. It was a very satisfactory change! – Thom Gunn
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. – Thom Gunn
The AIDS epidemic has rolled back a big rotting log and revealed all the squirming life underneath it, since it involves, all at once, the main themes of our existence: sex, death, power, money, love, hate, disease and panic. No American phenomenon has been so compelling since the Vietnam War. – Edmund White
The moral immune system of this country has been weakened and attacked, and the AIDS virus is the perfect metaphor for it. The malignant neglect of the last twelve years has led to breakdown of our countrys immune system, environmentally, culturally, politically, spiritually and physically. – Barbra Streisand