Deal by Randall Mann

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I probably don’t need to begin by reminding you about what a fan of Randall’s work I am, but this means this is the first “New and Selected Poems” collection in which I had already read all the “Selected Poems” in their respective original collections. So while I read the new poems intently I did somewhat flick through the rest, letting familiar lines catch my attention.

But at 45 (ish) pages the new poems are a decent sized collection in their own right. And they have that exciting mix of joy and melancholy that is such a rich feature of Randall’s work.

Most had the form Randall has increasingly favoured over the years of very short lines, two or three words, I think this gives the words an immediacy.

There the mixing of memory, the particular memories of growing up gay, and present experience – and Randall is of a generation in which the legacy of AIDS is never far below the surface. But a strong message that live is there to be lived through it all.

I tagged the poem Friday, which begins

Is this a story

or a problem,

a colleague said.

…

…

I switch off

my face,

and chat,

...