Randall Mann's "Breakfast with Thom Gunn" is a work both direct and unsettling. Haunted by the afterlife of Thom Gunn (1929-2004), one of the most beloved gay literary icons of the twentieth century, the poems are moored in Florida and California, but the backdrop is 'pitiless', the trees 'thin and bloodless', the words 'like the icy water' of the San Francisco Bay. Mann, fiercely intelligent, open yet elusive, draws on the 'graceful erosion' of both landscape and the body, on the beauty that lies in unbeauty. With audacity, anxiety, and unbridled desire, this gifted lyric poet grapples with dilemmas of the gay self embroiled in - and aroused by - a glittering, unforgiving subculture. "Breakfast with Thom Gunn" is at once formal and free, forging a sublime integrity in the fire of wit, intensity, and betrayal.

About the Author
Randall Mann is a writer and editor who lives in San Francisco. He is the author of Complaint in the Garden, winner of the Kenyon Review Prize in Poetry.

Reviews
"We have before us a skillful, witty, passionate young poet.... Randall Mann is both attuned to and at odds with the natural world; he articulates the passions and predicaments of a self inside a massive, arousing, but sometimes brutal culture. And he accomplishes these things with buoyant lyric sensibilities and rejuvenating skills." - Kenyon Review"



Book Information
ISBN 9780226503448
Author Randall Mann
Format Paperback
Page Count 80
Imprint University of Chicago Press
Publisher The University of Chicago Press
Weight(grams) 142g
Dimensions(mm) 23mm * 16mm * 1mm