American sonnets for my past and future assassin

Title:

Author:

Hayes, Terrance, author.

ISBN:

9780143133186

Personal Author:

Hayes, Terrance, author.

Uniform Title:

Poems. Selections

Publication Information:

New York, New York : Penguin Books, [2018]

Physical Description:

91 pages : portrait ; 22 cm.

Series:

Penguin poets

Penguin poets.

Abstract:

"A powerful, timely, dazzling collection of sonnets from one of America's most acclaimed poets, Terrance Hayes, the National Book Award winning author of Lighthead. In seventy poems bearing the same title, Terrance Hayes explores the meanings of American, of assassin, and of love in the sonnet form. Written during the first two hundred days of the Trump presidency, these poems are haunted by the country's past and future eras and errors, its dreams and nightmares. Inventive, compassionate, hilarious, melancholy, and bewildered--the wonders of this new collection are irreducible and stunning"-- Provided by publisher.

"In seventy poems bearing the same title, Terrance Hayes explores the meanings of American, of assassin, and of love in the sonnet form. These poems are haunted by the country's past and future eras and errors, its dreams and nightmares"-- Provided by publisher.

Subject Term:

African Americans -- Social conditions -- Poetry.

Geographic Term:

United States -- Race relations -- Poetry.

Genre:

American poetry -- African American authors -- 21st century.

Poetry.

Document ID:

SD_ILS:2312493

Holds: Copies:

Available:*

Library	Collection	Collection	Call Number	Status
Searching... Clovis Branch Library (Fresno Co.)	Searching... Unknown	Non-fiction Area	811 HAY	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Fig Garden Branch (Fresno Co.)	Searching... Unknown	Non-fiction Area	811 HAY	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Fresno Central Library (Fresno Co.)	Searching... Unknown	Non-fiction Area	811 HAY	Searching... Unknown
Searching... North Fork Branch (Madera Co.)	Searching... Unknown	Adult Non-fiction	811.54 HAY	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

In seventy poems bearing the same title, Terrance Hayes explores the meanings of American, of assassin, and of love in the sonnet form. Written during the first two hundred days of the Trump presidency, these poems are haunted by the country's past and future eras and errors, its dreams and nightmares. Inventive, compassionate, hilarious, melancholy, and bewildered - the wonders of this new collection are irreducible and stunning.

Author Notes

Terrance Hayes is the author of Lighthead, winner of the 2010 National Book Award and finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. His other books are Wind In a Box, Hip Logic , and Muscular Music . His honors include a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a 2014 MacArthur Fellowship. How To Be Drawn , his most recent collection of poems, was a finalist for the 2015 National Book Award and received the 2016 NAACP Image Award for Poetry.

Reviews (3)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Hayes (How to Be Drawn) addresses this marvelous series of 70 free-verse sonnets to his potential assassin: a nameless, faceless embodiment of America's penchant for racially motivated violence. The poems are redolent of Hayes's signature rhythmic artistry and wordplay: "After death. Our warriors, weirdos, antiheroes, our sirs,/ Sires, our sighers, sidewinders & whiners, winos/ And wonders become dust." Hayes mockingly refers to President Trump as "Mister Trumpet" and excoriates his fellow Americans for seeking "A leader whose metallic narcissism is a reflection/ Of your own." He captures the existential dread of the first year of Trump's presidency accurately, but also provides some whimsy for the weary, referring to the present time as "The umpteenth slump/ In our humming democracy, a bumble bureaucracy/ With teeny tiny wings too small for its rumpled,/ Dumpling of a body." Hayes references a range of poetic precursors and sings the praises of numerous black cultural figures, including Langston Hughes, Jimi Hendrix, and Toni Morrison. An ode to James Baldwin describes the crease between his eyes as "a riverbed branching/ Into tributaries like lines of rapturous sentences/ Searching for a period." Inventive as ever, Hayes confronts America's myriad ills with unflinching candor, while leaving space for love, humor, and hope. (June) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Booklist Review

By now, MacArthur fellow Hayes (How to Be Drawn, 2015) is well recognized as a highly accomplished, phenomenally talented poet, whose work interrogates race, America, canonical literature, art, domesticity, history the list goes on. For his sixth book of poetry, Hayes has composed 70 sonnets, all sharing the same title as the collection itself. Even for such a consistently brilliant poet, the strict parameters of the sonnet can prove challenging. Unsurprisingly, Hayes masters this classical form, taking creative liberties with meter and rhyme to deliver unsettling incantations (Probably twilight makes blackness dangerous / Darkness. Probably all my encounters / are existential jambalaya); hostile confrontations (I lock you in an American sonnet that is part prison, / Part panic closet, a little room in a house set aflame); and occasional love letters (Seven of the ten things I love in the face / Of James Baldwin concern the spiritual Elasticity of his expressions). With this incomparable collection, Hayes joins others in taking on the sonnet, including Natasha Trethewey and Laurie Ann Guerrero, reinvigorating its form and reimagining the possibilities of American literature.--Báez, Diego Copyright 2018 Booklist

Library Journal Review

"Are you not the color of this country's current threat/ Advisory? And of pompons at a school whose mascot/ Is the clementine?" It takes a moment to register that this ode to orange from National Book Award winner Hayes (Lighthead), one of 70 masterly sonnets inspired by the late Wanda Coleman's American Sonnets, references Donald Trump. Written during the first 200 days of Trump's administration, these meditations register righteous anger. "Probably twilight makes blackness dangerous/ Darkness," advises one poem, and another: "The bones managing the body's business are cloaked/ until you assassinate my nigga flesh." But there's celebration, too: "Seven of the ten things I love in the face/ of James Baldwin concern the spiritual/ elasticity of his expressions." VERDICT "In a second I'll tell you how little/ Writing rescues," says Hayes, but his rescues a lot. Highly recommended. © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Excerpts

AMERICAN SONNET FOR MY PAST AND FUTURE ASSASSIN Sometimes the father almost sees looking At the son, how handsome he'd be if half His own face was made of the woman he loved. He almost sees in his boy's face, an openness Like a wound before it scars, who he was Long before his name was lost, the trail To his future on earth long before he arrived. To be dead & alive at the same time. A son finds his father handsome because The son can almost see how he might Become superb as the scar above a wound. And because the son can see who he was Long before he had a name, the trace of His future on earth long before he arrived. Excerpted from American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin by Terrance Hayes All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.