Muni Art 2020 - Randall Mann Poet Page

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The Long View

Two lovers sit atop
Dolores Park: they stop
their argument to see
a church, a bridge, a sea.

They play a little game:
each man proceeds to name
his list of lovers, dead.
There’s no one left unsaid.

Anxious pigeons wait
for crumbs to fall. It’s late.
The weather starts to shift:
all fog, all love, will lift.

Randall Mann, “The Long View” from Breakfast with Thom Gunn. Copyright © 2009 by The University of Chicago Press. Reprinted with the permission of The University of Chicago Press and the author. Muni Art 2020, San Francisco Beautiful, sfbeautiful.org

Randall Mann

Headshot of Muni Art 2020 Poet Randall Mann
photo credit to Josh Koll

Randall Mann is the author of four poetry collections, most recently Proprietary (Persea Books, 2017). A new collection, A Better Life, is forthcoming from Persea in April 2021. His poems have appeared in the Asian American Literary Review, Lit Hub, Poetry, San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Post, and elsewhere. He has lived in San Francisco since 1998.

Artist Interpretations

Two people on a bench, overlooking the expanse of Dolores Park, the northeast skyline, and the vast night sky
Vanessa Fajardo

Two tiny men together on a pigeon beside a snow globe of the northeast view from Dolores Park
Jocelyn Li Legrand

The northern view from lower Dolores Park as seen through palm trees
Shannon Bodrogi

Six polygons in bright colors bordered by a pale blue irregular grid
Wendy Ackrell

A collage of various geometric shapes, mostly solid colors, one with a moire pattern, over a black background
Skooter Fein