Straight Razor

This taut, severe, decidedly adult third volume from Mann ends up more disturbing, as well as more laconic, than his first two, though it pursues the same signature subjects. Love and sex between men, gone very right or very wrong, dominates a collection thick with epigrams, pantoums, and villanelles, quite aware of centuries-old poetic traditions, as well as of contemporary gay subcultural mores: “When cruising for a partner on the pier,/ I start with good intentions, on date… What stays, like some insipid trick, is fear.” As one might expect from a poet who called his last collection Breakfast with Thom Gunn, the sex is explicit, the meters traditional and taut, the poems compact, witty, yet ready for serious points, the physicality of the male body right up front, whether put literally or in stanzas (“Stable”) that also portray a horse. What’s new in Mann, now, is the tight focus on self-hatred, the interest in frustrated gay kids and teens, and in memory: “At six I bit my lip/ and took to backyard voguing.” Mann’s sometimes horrid, sometimes comic Florida youth shows up, from clueless high school days to “lube/ left over from the Gainesville/ Murder Slumber Party”; so do other poets, living, antique or recently deceased, from Rachel Wetzsteon to Cesar Vallejo and Catullus. Mann’s poetry might remain too curt, or too narrow, for some tastes, but others will delight in his combination of astringency and fire. (Nov.)