Arguing that homosexual poetry is part of the mainstream of poetic writing--not a distinct and differentiated category within it--Gregory Woods provides a fastidious study of homosexual poetry in the twentieth century that emphasizes the homo-erotic themes in the works of D.H. Lawrence, Hart Crane, W.H. Auden, Allen Ginsberg, and Thom Gunn. Woods's controlled and elegant study demonstrates that a critic who ignores the sexual orientation of a poet, particularly a love poet, risks overlooking the significance of the poetry itself.

This is an integrated collection in which Gregory Woods returns to the themes of obsession, possession and violence. In its explorations of masculinity, the opening section draws on struggles for power in ancient and more recent history. These poems dissect men's vanities and desires in ways which expose the personal facets of heroism and atrocity. In the pivotal central section, Woods returns to a colonial childhood and the roots of his own development as a writer. The third section combines personal reminiscences with a sceptical re-examination of sexual liberation.