The Other Man Was Me: A Voyage to the New World.

• Author: Rothschild, Matthew
• Position: Brief Article

Every once in a while, I'll come upon an astonishing piece of writing from someone I'd never heard of before, and I will make a note to pursue that writer. Such was the case with Rafael Campo. I first met Campo in the fall 1993 Kenyon Review, which published some of his remarkable poetry, along with a devastating essay, "AIDS and the Poetry of Healing." Campo is gay, and a doctor, and that combination--along with his Cuban-American identity--gives him his own unique perspective and voice.

In The Other Man Was Me, Campo explores the themes of his Hispanic heritage, wrestles with his father and the difficulty he had accepting his son's homosexuality, exalts the man he marries, celebrates the son they adopt (despite resistance from bureaucrats and his brother), and confronts the plague of AIDS he sees all around him.

The poems that struck me the most (the pages that I rabbit-eared) fall into two categories: his relationship with his father, and his treatment of AIDS patients.

"Song for My Father" consists of sixteen little poems. One of these...