In his new book, [Hayes] set himself the challenge of writing political poems in the guise of love poems. Each one is distinct: Some are sermons, some are swoons. They are acrid with tear gas, and they unravel with desire…There's a saying attributed to Flannery O'Connor, that to be a painter, you must first love the smell of paint. Hayes loves language; he loves the round vowel and crisp consonant. He loves to stuff a line full of sound…to write for the ear as well as the eye. His words call to be read aloud, to be tasted…These poems play with different registers, but they return to lamentation, to annihilating grief…Hayes's project was inspired by Wanda Coleman's series of "American Sonnets," but his conception of the form is very much his own. For him the excitement of the sonnet stems from its insistence on change: It must include a volta—a sudden turn, a new argument. It's what makes the sonnet implicitly American, Hayes has said, with admiration and naked hope—the ability to change your mind, the willingness to change your course.

04/16/2018
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)

Hayes set himself the challenge of writing political poems in the guise of love poems.  Each one is distinct:  Some are sermons, some are swoons.  They are acrid with tear gas, and they unravel with desire . . . These poems play with different registers, but they return to lamentation, to annihilating grief for ‘all the black people I’m tired of losing,’ one narrator says.” – Parul Sehgal, The New York Times

“A diary of survival during a period when black men are in constant danger . . . This is one of the deepest accounts I have read in poetry of what it feels like to have one’s body fetishized as an object but criminalized as a force.” – Dan Chiasson, The New Yorker

“The right poetry collection for right now . . . Hayes’ writing demonstrates a serious commitment to revising, extending, and advancing American poetry while recording, celebrating, and mourning black American life.  These aesthetic and intellectual preoccupations also charge American Sonnets.” –Walton Muyumba, The Los Angeles Times

“American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin is a gift in a fraught moment. These sonnets, existential, political, personal, retain a moral ferocity and urgency . . . Hayes’ inhabits the deeply troubling historical moment.  But these poems are timeless, by which I mean these sonnets annihilate any difference between past and future." – Faraz Rizvi, The Millions

“Hayes reinvigorates a classic form . . . [he] examines what it means to be an American, to belong, and how it feels to be haunted and hunted by violent racism . . . expect to be challenged on nearly every page.” – Elizabeth Lund, The Washington Post
 
“Overwhelming in every sense.  Overwhelming in its brilliance, yes, but also overwhelming in its pacing, its style . . . The book, despite its breadth and clever turns, is a confrontation . . . His poems are like the slow and steady picking of a lock, until the door handle clicks.” – Hanif Abdurraqib, Poets and Writers

"You will find all of [Hayes's] signature pleasures and provocations in this new collection: dense lyricism, associative word play, the political, the interpersonal, explorations and interrogations of race and gender and sex and the body and violence and power and history and time." – Kenyon Review 

"A wild work, effervescent and despondent, Hayes’s collection of sonnets reminds us that the mastery of time is one of poetry’s important functions, though sonnets only buy it back in hasty fourteen-line bursts.” – Dan Chiasson, The New Yorker, "The Poetry I was Grateful for in 2018"

“[Hayes] speaks with urgency and authority, bearing witness to the absurdities and cruelties of the present moment . . . [American Sonnets] doesn’t just combine style and substance; style becomes substance . . . These poems reminded me what poetry is capable of: of being revelatory and inscrutable all at once, of speaking truth to power—but speaking it slant.” —Tara McEvoy, The Guardian

“Pain and poignancy collide in this collection of seventy sonnets . . . perhaps the takeaway of Mr. Hayes’ work here is that what lies in between is heart – a pounding of poems that stays in the chest long after the pages are set down. These poems stay with me, they linger, they poke and ask questions, and this is the book’s success.  What more can one ask from poetry?” – Cameron Barnett, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
 
“Hayes 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 his signature rhythmic artistry and wordplay . . . Inventive as ever, Hayes confronts America’s myriad ills with unflinching candor, while leaving space for love, humor, and hope.” – Publishers Weekly

“With this incomparable collection, Hayes  joins others in taking on the sonnet, reinvigorating its form and reimagining the possibilities of American literature.” – Booklist

In a smooth voice and a measured tone, poet Terrance Hayes delivers 70 of his own sonnets condemning what he calls America’s assassins: racism, violence, and prejudice against black people. In this National Book Award-nominated collection, Hayes unflinchingly criticizes President Trump and decries hate crimes against blacks throughout history. Hayes’s political opinions are augmented by poems paying tribute to radical figures such as James Baldwin and Emily Dickinson. His steady cadence and warm tone blend well with both his politically charged and his tributary sonnets. However, because one title encompasses all of the poems, the audiobook can be challenging for multitasking listeners. Nonetheless, Hayes’s narration elevates this provocative, relevant, and timely collection. A.C. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine