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Rating: 
Summary: A
Review: The editorial review is only half right about this book. Trinidad's poetry is, at this early point in his career, diaristic, in the "I did this, I did that" vein of Frank O'Hara or James Schuyler. And often beautifully so. But to find fault in the book for what's missing in it (i.e., an address of the AIDS epidemic) is misguided. Clearly this reviewer had a preconception of what a book by a "gay" poet writing in the 80s should be: political, brave, anguished. If that's what you're looking for, read "The Man with Night Sweats" by Thom Gunn (which is wonderful) or Mark Doty's work. Trinidad is a different kind of writer. His project is to examine the ways pop culture affects (and sometimes tyrannizes) the individual. That's his theme -- a smaller one, but no less valid. Expecting every gay poet to write on AIDS is like saying every lesbian has to write about breast cancer (!?), or every Japanese writer has to write about Hiroshima, or the whatever the "gravest problem" affecting his or her culture is. We might ask, rather, how does the specter of AIDS subtly affect his poetry (an inability to achieve intimacy, reluctance to date men, and finally, a dependence on objects rather than people)? Instead of blaming Trinidad, we might come to better understand how gay men who didn't acquire HIV nevertheless had to grapple with emotional fallout from it. In this sense, Trinidad is actually closer to our current sensibility in terms of dealing with the disease (it's not in our face, but it still affects our behavior). That said -- although I really like this book -- it will probably appeal to those already familiar with Trinidad's more recent work. Or to James Schuyler fans.
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