Straight Razor: Poems

by Randall Mann

Bawdy yet elegant poems depicting the debaucheries and traumas of growing up amid San Francisco's gay scene. Randall Mann combines the regal and ribald, his ear for poetic form matched by his unrelenting eye for lasciviousness, in this fetching chronicle of oversexed youth.  "Craft and bravura mix well...Mann shows himself [Thom Gunn's] apt pupil...The clarity startles." -Richard Rayner, Los Angeles Times

Genres: Poetry, Queer

80 pages, Paperback

First published October 16, 2013

About the author

Randall Mann's DEAL: NEW & SELECTED POEMS is forthcoming from Copper Canyon Press in May 2023. He is also the author of the following books: A BETTER LIFE (Persea Books, 2021); PROPRIETARY (Persea Books, 2017), finalist for the Northern California Book Award and Lambda Literary Award; STRAIGHT RAZOR (Persea Books, 2013), a Rumpus Poetry Book Club selection and finalist for the Lambda Literary Award; BREAKFAST WITH THOM GUNN (Chicago, 2009), finalist for the California Book Award and Lambda Literary Award; and COMPLAINT IN THE GARDEN (Zoo/Orchises, 2004), winner of the 2003 Kenyon Review Prize. In addition, he has written a book of criticism, THE ILLUSION OF INTIMACY: ON POETRY (Diode Editions, 2019). Winner of the J. Howard and Barbara M.J. Wood Prize from Poetry magazine. Poems and prose in The Adroit Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, Lit Hub, The Cortland Review, and The Kenyon Review.

Reviews

[Jon Nakapalau · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poems that really cut deep; Randall Mann has captured that feeling of 'searching for belonging' very well. We can all relate to the 'transactional' juxtapositions of everyday life - those moments that require us to look away and then look again - because we know there is something that is there that is invisible at first.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

O, the man- and poet-crush I have on Randy Mann.

[Kiran · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well done--Mann is a talented poet.

[simu · Rating 1 out of 5]

low grade fiction

[willowdog · Rating 3 out of 5]

Often using a formalized structure, Mann's poetry delivers creative images of growing up gay in Florida, the San Francisco gay scene, sex, and longing.