ReviewsDuring this current pandemic, Randall Mann conjures the ghost of the last one, thereby drawing parallels between the two. Like in the mirroring and repetitive lines of his clever pantoums and palindrome poems, he seems to say that the more things change, the more they stay the same., Sexually and existentially hilarious, A Better Life is also deeply elegiac with a rigor--a commitment to the music of the line--that astonishes. Mann chronicles and contributes to a queer history that continues to be all too easily forgotten., Mann uses his own history to interrogate the experience of American life beyond the cis, white, heteronormative bubble, and he imbues his questions with humor and rhythm., Sexually witty and existentially hilarious, A Better Life is also deeply elegiac with a rigor--a commitment to the music of the line--that astonishes. Mann chronicles and contributes to a queer history that continues to be all too easily forgotten., A Kenyon Review and multitime Lambda Literary honoree, Randall Mann energetically explores a gay, multiracial identity in A Better Life., "From "Mickey Mouse" Florida to Anita Bryant's 1978 San Francisco, poems like "Fifty Years After Stonewall" evoke the changes: "You girl me/ in the virtual/ hallway,/ like a friend / A lover./ Clever/ as this phone." Easy yet startling rhymes propel short lines forward, some one or two words each, while other poems use longer lines and repetitive forms--sestina and pantoum, or loose versions of such--to grapple with obsession, humiliation, and pain."
Dewey Decimal811.6
SynopsisFrom "a writer of breathtaking honesty" (David Ulin, LA Times), gorgeous new poems that are satirical, open-hearted, and unrepentantly queer., In his poetry, "at once boisterous and lubed, anxious and ambivalent" ( Kenyon Review ), Randall Mann has always had his finger on the pulse of modern life. In his liminal new book of poetry, a gay, multiracial ("they called me yellow in Lexington") speaker exists in the rift between the "fluorescent rot" of childhood and the "action; / transaction" of a sex-app midlife. The author of Straight Razor and Proprietary , Mann has long been admired for merging raw subject matter with formal ease. A Better Life shows him at the height of his gifts, in the clipped, haunting truth of its rhymes and rhythms., In his poetry, ?at once boisterous and lubed, anxious and ambivalent? (Kenyon Review), Randall Mann has always had his finger on the pulse of modern life.?In his liminal new book of poetry, a gay, multiracial (?they called me yellow in Lexington?) speaker exists in the rift between the ?fluorescent rot? of childhood and the ?action; / transaction? of a sex-app midlife. The author of?Straight Razor?and?Proprietary,? Mann has long been admired for merging raw subject matter with formal ease.?A Better Life?shows him at the height of his gifts, in the clipped, haunting truth of its rhymes and rhythms.
LC Classification NumberPS3613.A55B48 2021