Written after his lover Roger Horwitz, passed away from complications from the AIDS virus, Love Alone: Eighteen Elegies for Rog is a moving collection of poems by Paul Monette. He dedicates these to Roger.

Reviewing poetry is difficult, I think either you enjoy reading the poems and they resonate or, they just don't strike a chord. Poetry is so subjective, I think that is why I enjoy it so much. Everyone sees it differently and can take different things from it.

I enjoyed this sad collection and I found this to be a beautiful tribute by Monette for the love of his life. The way Monette shares his feelings through poetry in an intense and honest way makes this for an emotional read. He remembers Roger as he shares not only his pain and his loss, but also his love for his partner. It's really moving. And that is what real love is all about, you never stop loving someone, even when they are gone.

"I promise you all the last gardenias Rog
but they can't go on like this they've stopped they know
the only garden we'll ever be is us"

There are photos at the end and I always find that a nice touch, as it makes reading something like this even more real. This was a lovely tribute.

disclaimer: I received my free review copy of Love Alone: Eighteen Elegies for Rog by Paul Monette via NetGalley.
This review is my honest opinion. I did not receive any type of compensation for reading and reviewing this book. While I receive free books from publishers and authors, such as this one, I am under no obligation to write a positive review. ( )

These poems are raw and real. Written directly after the loss of a loved one of a disease that slowly stripped the man he loved away and replaced him with only memories. I'm not a poetry reader but these are some of the most powerfully written words I've ever read. Anyone who's ever lost someone will find solice in these words. ( )

The people at Amazon who assign the categories call this book "Gay and Lesbian". No, it's "Human". Monette himself said, ". . .I would rather have this volume filed under AIDS than under Poetry, because if these words speak to anyone they are for those who are mad with loss, to let them know they are not alone."

I remember that I was driving into the city on the Kennedy Expressway when I heard on the news that Paul Monette had died. It was a shock, even knowing that it was coming, any day. Oddly, I was on my way to a class on Plato.

Oddly, I say, because my favorite poem in this book is "The House on King's Road", with the lines:
". . .the lamp
pooling on the blue-bound Plato as we held
our ground through August let the material go
what you cannot buy or have in your name
is the ghost of a touch the glancing stroke
as a man passes through a room where his love
sits reading later much later the nodding head
of the one on the other's shoulder no title
usurps that place this is its home forever"

Monette wrote these poems after the death from complications of AIDS of his lover, Roger Horwitz, on whose grave are Plato's last words on Socrates, "the wisest and justest and best".
Monette was later to lose another lover, and then his own life, to the epidemic. Larry Kramer called these poems "gorgeous, heartbreaking screams". There are moments when they are maudlin, self-indulgent. He was entitled. They move me deeply, past mere sentimental tears. If one is not angry at this loss, at the many losses, one is not human.