Poetry in the Age of AIDS

AIDS has occasioned an overwhelming response in contemporary American poetry. But exactly how, in the face of illness and despair, does poetry function?

In an attempt to find answers to this question, the group will look at five recent books: Tory Dent’s What Silence Equals, Mark Doty’s My Alexandria, Thom Gunn’s The Man With Night Sweats, Rachel Hadas’s Unending Dialogue: Voices from an AIDS Poetry Workshop, and Michael Klein’s Poets for Life: Seventy-Six Poets Respond to AIDS.