Randall Mann
Illustration — Randall Mann at Sierra Poetry Festival 2025 Randall Mann (born January 21, 1972) is an American poet.
Randall Mann

Rosiestep · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Born
- 1972 · Provo.
- Nationality
- United States
- Occupation
- poet
- Education
- University of Florida
- Languages
- English
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wikidata · Q7291580 · wikipedia · Randall Mann
In this article
Life and career
Life and career
Born in Provo, Utah, the only son of Olympic Track and Field medalist Ralph Mann, Mann grew up in Kentucky and Florida, and earned a BA and an MFA from the University of Florida. Since 1998, he has lived in San Francisco.
Co-authored book
Publications and critical reception
Mann's poems have appeared in numerous periodicals including The Kenyon Review, The New Republic, The Paris Review, Poetry, and The Washington Post, and he has published six full-length poetry collections. His first collection, Complaint in the Garden, published by Zoo Press in 2004, won the 2003 Kenyon Review Prize in Poetry. Mann's next collection, Breakfast with Thom Gunn, published by the University of Chicago Press in 2009, was praised by the Los Angeles Times: "craft and bravura mix well" and "the clarity startles". The book was named a finalist for the California Book Award and the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry. Mann's next two collections were published by Persea Books. Straight Razor, published in 2013, was described by the Los Angeles Times as full of "breathtaking honesty", was named a best poetry book of the year by the Kansas City Star, and a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award. Proprietary, published in 2017, was a finalist for the 2018 Lambda Literary Award and the Northern California Book Award. In a review of Proprietary, Tess Taylor on NPR's All Things Considered said that "Mann imagines anew what it means to connect or to feel at a loss in the age of the Internet"; Nathan Blansett in The Kenyon Review wrote that "Proprietary shows Mann at his most incisive"; and Walter Holland, writing in Lambda Literary, wrote "Mann's work should be admired for its ferocity, its craft, and its unabashedly gay point of view." Mann is also the co-author of the textbook Writing Poems, Seventh Edition, published by Pearson Longman in 2007.
Poetry collections
• Deal: New and Selected Poems. Copper Canyon Press, 2023.. • A Better Life. Persea Books, 2021.. • Proprietary. Persea Books, 2017.. • Straight Razor. Persea Books, 2013.. • Breakfast with Thom Gunn. University of Chicago Press, 2009.. • Complaint in the Garden. Zoo Press, 2004..
Honors and awards
In 2004, Mann was named to the OUT 100 list by Out magazine. He was named a Laureate of the San Francisco Public Library in 2010. In 2013, he received the J. Howard and Barbara M. J. Wood Prize from Poetry magazine.
Text attribution
Licensing
Text attribution
Part of the biographical narrative on this page reuses licensed material. Its origin, revision and licence are recorded here.
The biographical narrative on this page is based on the Wikipedia article Randall Mann, revision 1370269779 (EN edition), by its contributors. VALÉORINE has edited that text and built its own documentary record around it. The reused material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0, and this page's reuse of it is offered under the same licence. Everything else on this page — the chronology, the holdings, the evidence, the plates and the connections — is VALÉORINE's own record. Sources and licences.
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.University of Florida info.
- 2.Baker, David. On Randall Mann's "Complaint in the Garden". The Kenyon Review. 26. 2. 93–96. 2004. 0163-075X.
- 3.Rayner, Richard. New in paperback: Wit, elegance and war. Los Angeles Times. 2009-03-29.
- 4.California Book Award finalists. SFGATE. 2010-03-28.
- 5.Valenzuela, Tony. 22nd Annual Lambda Literary Awards. Lambda Literary. 2010-05-10.
- 6.Randall Mann and the poetics of desire. Los Angeles Times. 2014-01-09.
- 7.The Kansas City Star. https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article332835/100-ways-to-celebrate-the-written-word.html (Retrieved 17 Jul 2018).
- 8.Lambda Literary. https://www.lambdaliterary.org/26th-annual-lambda-literary-award-finalists-and-winners/ (Retrieved 17 Jul 2018).
- 9.Boureau, Ella. 30th Annual Lambda Literary Award Finalists Announced. Lambda Literary. 2018-03-06.
- 10.Poetry Flash > programs. poetryflash.org.
- 11.NPR. https://www.npr.org/2017/07/05/535665871/randall-manns-proprietary-reinvents-classic-san-francisco-poetry (Retrieved 17 Jul 2018).
- 12.On Proprietary by Randall Mann. The Kenyon Review.
- 13.Holland, Walter. 'Proprietary' by Randall Mann. Lambda Literary. 2017-08-08.
- 14.Here Publishing. Out. December 2004.
- 15.San Francisco Public Library. http://www.friendssfpl.dreamhosters.com/events/laureates (Retrieved 17 Jul 2018).
- 16.Poetry Magazine Prizes. Poetry Foundation. 2023-10-19.
References
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The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 25 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Books
39,529 published records in this field, each with its sources named.
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