May I Say Nothing

Gregory Woods takes the epigraph of his second collection from Jean Genet: 'more objectivity, more passivity, more indifference, hence poetry'.May I Say Nothing is a collection of homo-erotic verses on both personal and broader social themes.The book is in three parts.The first opens with formal poems about key figures in past gay culture, whom Woods implicitly connects with aspects of contemporary life.The second part consists of twelve-line poems on themes progressing from desire, through consummation, to loss and the renewal of desire.The third part contains mainly longer, narrative poems in a variety of forms, exploring themes of masculinity and power, love and hatred, youth and ageing.A more troubled book than Woods' celebrated volume We Have the Melon (1992), May I Say Nothing integrates his celebrations of male physicality into a context of repression and violence.The victory is in the fact that the beauty of the male body survives the questionable causes it is expected to serve.