American Sonnets For My Past And Future Assassin

I love this book. The poems are powerful, and meaningful. Hayes uses imagery in an imaginative and unorthodox manner, and his use of internal rhyme and alliteration make many of the sonnets into a masterclass of technical ability.

what i marvel most about the poems by terrance hayes, is, probably, the manic energy at which they are read, his ability to sustain prosody at all costs, and, most of all, his inexhaustible inventiveness. the back-cover remarks let us know that these poems were ‘(w)ritten during the first two hundred days of the Trump presidency…’ having read them, with attention to nuance, insinuation and suggestion, except for one poem, i found nothing to link these poems to the trump presidency, unless taken in consideration are the range of emotions hayes employs. but how are these any different from the uses of hip-hop idiom, invective, and the need to rise above stereotype by juggling in the air fear, anger and love used by young black poets say, over the last twenty years? if you are politically persuaded and your social consciousness is stirred, more power to you. but don’t do so at the price of overlooking hayes’ dazzling wordplay and skills as a poetic raconteur. on more than one occasion, he has mentioned the work of wanda coleman, a poet who seemed to have a treasure trove of words, not big words, but every day words, words never recycled again and again, a rarity for poets. for poets, repetition is a staple. you can sense a newness in the way hayes works, how within the confines of poetic form, he makes several forms of his own making. using seventy sonnets, slyly giving the same name to each sonnet, listed in the index by the first line, he divides them in five groups of fourteen poems, keep in mind there are fourteen lines in a sonnet to appreciate the symmetry fitting to the tradition of american poet, donald hall, his baseball poems constructed on a series of nine to conform with the innings of a game. within his form, hayes has his own game with poetics. followers of surrealism may want to read the five grouped first lines in the index as five bonus poems. in each of the five groups one line is repeated ‘but there never was a black male hysteria.’ or consider the eponymous title with the word ‘past’ read as a noun as a way of situating the poet’s past as the poet’s traditional past: The black poet would love to say his century began With Hughes or God forbid, Wheatley, but actually It began with all the poetry weirdos & worriers, warriors, Poetry whiners & winos falling from ship bows, sunset Bridges and windows. and: Orpheus was alone when he invented writing. His manic drawing became a kind of writing when he sent His beloved a sketch of an eye with an X struck through it. He meant I am blind without you. She thought he meant I never want to see you again. It is possible he meant that, too. as for his future assassin, i leave that person or thing, as i leave what political sludge can be dredged from his poems, to other readers. suffice it to say, i enjoy the poems of his twin past, whether chasing with him all those literary whalers in: I thought we might as well sing the fables of the sea or the depth of feeling of the boy explored in: One of the most amazing things about me is I know how to cut my own hair. I learned how to do it After my father moved away. contained in these american sonnets. mr hayes is heading a reformation in american poetry.

«[…] Like no Culture before us, we relate the way the descendants Of the raped relate to the descendants of their rapists. May your restlessness come at last to rest, constituents Of Midas. I wish you the opposite of what Neruda said Of lemons. May all the gold you touch burn, rot & rust.» Setenta poemas intensos que necesitan de una comprensión amplia no solo del inglés si no de la situación de Estados Unidos así como de su historia. Poemas que son gritos de guerra, palabras de odio o recuerdos del terror, para que nunca nos olvidemos de todo aquello que sucedió. En numerosas ocasiones he tenido que buscar los nombres de las personas de las que estaba hablando el poema, así como leyes u otras referencias, para poder comprender el poema en su totalidad. Un libro que te hace trabajar ¿no es eso algo positivo? Sobre todo en un poemario. Pues te permite disfrutar de cada estrofa. Los poemas se leen tranquilos y con pausa. Se inhalan, se exhalan, se entienden, se sienten. No leas un poemario de una tirada ¡qué error tan garrafal! Disfrutalos, poquito a poco. Como si escapases de la palabra final. Un consejo de mí para ti. Puedes tomarlo o ignorarlo. Nadie te va a juzgar. Solo a ti has de agradar. Cuando me salen estas cosas de dentro me pregunto si debería dedicarme a la escritura “artística”, pero mi mente de periodista es demasiado lógica para las florituras. O quizás sea yo la que no me pare a inhalar y escribir.

Me gustó todo, sólo traía un defecto. Una hoja del índice está rasgada.

just excellent