Proprietary: Poems

by Randall Mann

For years, Randall Mann has been hailed as one of contemporary American poetry’s most daring formalists, expertly using craft as a way of exploring racy subjects with trenchant wit and aplomb. His new collection, Proprietary, depicts with the insights of a longtime insider the culture of corporate America, in which he’s worked for years, intertwined with some of his tried-and-true subjects, including gay life in the wildly disparate worlds of San Francisco and northern Florida.

Genres: Poetry, Queer

80 pages, Paperback

First published May 16, 2017

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

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite collection of Mann's work.

[Melissa Fondakowski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Randall Mann writes in form better than any poet I know. He's so skilled he makes the rhymes look easy...and the poems do go down easy: every single one of them feels like a secret, like he's telling you, only you, something dangerous or embarrassing or delightful about himself. He says the things that are hard to articulate, especially about our complicated hometown of San Francisco. And he says them with all the beauty and death of Icarus falling out of the sky.

[Jon Nakapalau · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book of poems really resonated with me; many of the poems take place in San Francisco. Randall Mann is a formalist tour guide; he takes you to the streets that have gnawed so many friends into memories - showing you the day to day choices that are made while trying to navigate the elements that drive us to self-destruction.

[Ivan Zhao · Rating 4 out of 5]

quite stunning

[Eric Mueller · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection is a joy to read and worth many returns. Mann's navigation of identity through time and space is compelling, illuminating, and entertaining. As a San Franciscan, I can appreciate all of his images of San Francisco, especially the queer spaces and people. While they mamy disappearing, Mann has immortalized them in lyric.

Mann is a fun author to read in terms of form because he's always sneaking in rhymes that aren't necessarily a scheme, they just flow well. It's like when the smart kid on your class starts freestyling and makes everyone in the room go quiet, until the applause at the end.

Office lingo and conflict for the modern professional is filled with sections of poems and even entire poems dedicated to it. It's weird to think about how so many people work at corporations and startups yet there is so little art that puts a person in that space and makes them feel things. The fact that this collection can be analyzed by a linguist and an HR guru shows that Mann has written something truly unique.