Above: Excerpt from Mann's poem "Postscriptum" (see full text below) as it appeared on the Freedom Tower during Holzer's Xenon for Miami exhibition, December 1 - 5, 2004.Photo by Charles Passarelli. Used with permission.

A very big wall, in fact.

Randall Mann, winner of the 2003 Kenyon Review Prize for Poetry, was invited by artist Jenny Holzer to contribute work for her Xenon for Miami project. Mann's words, along with those of other poets, were projected onto Miami's historic Freedom Tower last December as part of Art Basel Miami Beach, a contemporary art fair.

Holzer's Xenon projections have appeared throughout the globe, in cities such as Buenos Aires, Paris, and Madrid. The artist projects poetry in the form of light onto buildings. According to the project statement, Holzer used the poems of others to represent freedom, hope, hurting, laughter and resolution.

Holzer presented three of Mann's poems—"Angel in Florida," "Postscriptum," and "The Shortened History of Florida"—from his book Complaint in the Garden. Born in Utah, Mann grew up in Kentucky and Florida, and today resides in San Francisco. He submitted his then-unpublished book, Complaint, to the Kenyon Review Prize in Poetry in 2003. David Baker, the prize's judge and KR's poetry editor, selected the work as last year's winner. As part of the award, Complaint was published by Zoo Press. In his introduction to selections of Mann's work in the Spring 2004 issue of KR, Baker wrote, "(Mann) re-creates the landscape and flora of the Caribbean and Florida with great precision, its saw palmettos and egrets, its 'feathery-leafed locusts' and 'punctual monsoons.' He follows, in other words, a long line of observers from Donald Justice back through William Bartram to Ponce de León and Cabeza de Vaca."

Miami's Freedom Tower was modeled after the Giralda Tower, now part of the Seville Cathedral in Spain. Originally, the Giralda Tower was a mosque’s minaret, reflecting the Islamic culture that shaped the region before it was conquered in 1492. Holzer is "intrigued that the Freedom Tower echoes a building both Muslim and Christian." In response, she projected Israeli, Palestinian, Iraqi, and Syrian-American poems by Yehuda Amichai, Mahmoud Darwish, Fadhil Al-Azzawi and Mohja Kahf.

Today, the Freedom Tower is best known as “El Refugio”—the haven for over 450,000 Cuban immigrants who came to the United States between 1962 and 1974. As such, Holzer also selected poems "to reflect various searches for freedom and equality—especially the power of writing and the individual to transform and redeem." Among those poets selected were Americans Jack Gilbert, Henri Cole, and Mann.

Holzer also presented poems by Miami native Justice, as well as works first written in Spanish by Pablo Neruda and Federico García Lorca. Poems by Nobel Prize winner Wislawa Szymborska were also featured.

For more than twenty-five years, Holzer has presented her "truisms" and other written words through LED signs, posters, t-shirts, and now through xenon projections on landscape and architecture. Her work has been displayed in public places and international exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale, the Reichstag, and the Guggenheim Museums in New York and Bilbao. Holzer, who was born in Gallipolis, Ohio, lives in Hoosick, New York.

Mann's poetry has appeared in Paris Review, Pleiades, Poetry, and Salmagundi. You can read an interview with Mann and excerpts from Complaint on this web site.

Postscriptum

At first I was confused: the afterlife
looked like Florida, the fiery sand;
the company of tan, half-naked men;
the wayward, wilting palms. South Beach, I thought.

“You’re Randy, Randy Mann,” some guy in shorts
informed me. “Nice name.’’ I was at a loss.
“You’re new. See the queen who’s eyeing you?
That’s Brunetto.” I saw Latini, bronzed;

I smelled the brimstone—then I understood . . .
During the day, I’m damned to perfect my tan.
When prone, I often write the truth in sand:
Dante lied. My fellow sodomites

and I do not regret a blessèd thing:
we loved the only way we knew. That’s that.
We choose to walk, not for fear of being cursed
a century—we mingle. Socialize.

There is no rain, or rain of fire, or fire—
actually, the Seventh Circle’s rather nice,
and all my friends are here. The truth? It’s buried
somewhere beneath the surface—there lies Dante,

over on the sand, wearing a thong.