A Better Life

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 ofStraight RazorandProprietary, Mann has long been admired for merging raw subject matter with formal ease.A Better Lifeshows him at the height of his gifts, in the clipped, haunting truth of its rhymes and rhythms.